While he fends off questions about his brother’s whereabouts, Coun. Doug Ford is blasting city councillors who are seeking proof that Toronto’s embattled mayor is actually in rehab for substance abuse.

In an interview with CP24 on Thursday, Doug Ford criticized council members who aren’t taking him or the mayor at their word.

“They don’t care about the other families that are in this treatment centre,” Doug Ford said. “All they care about gaining political points, which is disgusting.”

Rob Ford’s exact whereabouts remain a tightly-guarded secret and there are unanswered questions or lingering doubts about the nature of the treatment he says he is receiving, even though he told Toronto Sun columnist Joe Warmington he is in a rehabilitation centre.

Warmington said Ford wouldn't tell him where he is. The mayor's brother and his lawyer, Dennis Morris, have declined to reveal the location, citing the privacy of the mayor and fellow patients.

Revealing the mayor’s location would create a media frenzy, Doug Ford claimed.

“You know exactly what would happen. You’d have a satellite truck sitting outside the treatment centre (and) video of every person that came in there,” he said.

The councillor previously told reporters his brother is not in outpatient care and he is in a facility “nowhere close to the GTA.”

While he is on an indefinite leave of absence, Rob Ford risks losing his council seat if he misses three monthly meetings (May, June and July) and council doesn’t pass a motion approving an absence lasting longer than three months.

Councillors ultimately voted unanimously to excuse Ford early Thursday evening.

The embattled mayor didn’t give the city clerk a return date after announcing he was taking time off to seek professional help for his self-admitted problem with alcohol “and the choices I have made while under the influence.”

The announcement came April 30 after Ford faced questions about new allegations of drug and alcohol use and inappropriate comments. The Globe and Mail says two of its reporters have seen a new video that allegedly shows the mayor smoking from a pipe in his sister’s basement early April 26.

While he claims he is in rehab, Ford has been making or receiving calls from family, councillors and Warmington.

One of his conversations with Warmington apparently landed him in big trouble.

Ford told the Sun columnist he was reprimanded after his comments about the rehab program and fellow patients were published in Wednesday’s newspaper.

In a column published Thursday, Ford said he didn’t know he was breaking the rules when he answered Warmington’s phone call and he is not allowed to do anymore interviews while he is in treatment.

The mayor broke the news to the columnist in another phone conversation, despite being told he wasn’t allowed to speak to the media again.

“I got into major s--- for talking to you, so I can’t talk to you,” Ford told Warmington.

“There’s just a policy you’re not allowed to speak to the media in these programs,” Ford added. “I didn’t know about that. They weren’t too happy.”

In the interview that landed him in trouble, Ford said he has been calling constituents while in treatment, and he described rehab as “amazing” while likening it to a football camp he attended as a kid.

Ford, who admitted last November to smoking crack cocaine in a "drunken stupor," told the Sun he is at a rehab centre that could cost as much as $100,000 and he insisted it is not a soft program.

“I am working out like an animal, man. It’s great, great.”

The mayor said the program is worth "every dime," even if it ends up costing six figures.

“A hundred grand is cheap. It’s a steal," he told the Sun.

@ChrisKitching is on Twitter. For up-to-the-minute breaking news, follow @CP24 on Twitter.