Need help trying to identify possible hijack problem

In the past, I've done a pretty good job of preventing and eliminating various spyware apps, but this one has me VERY stumped.. I suspect a rootkit got on my system, maybe thanks to a torrent d/l (serves me right, hehe)...

I have run bitdefender and sophos and neither have anything bad to say.. I ran the sophos rootkit detection/prevention stuff, and nothing turns up.. The only sign of a problem, which is a big one, is acting like a web proxy.. I can visit a site like google, only for it to tell me Access Denied.. Another time I went to msn, and it gave me a german message telling me the site not found. Or going to another site gave me a google search page, as if it were redirecting me to google. During all these problems, my vpn connection is working great - I can browse the web to my 192.168 vpn connections, even use my winvnc and remote desktop connections (although I probably shouldn't if there's password sniffing going on <shrug>)

Even in the middle of a problem (like when a site shows me the google page instead of the right page (again, displaying, NOT redirecting) - I can do a tracert and it shows the sames stuff as the other working machines in the house.

I certainly know its not an ISP issue, as the other machines in the house are fine. I manually researched ALL the visible processes running, and am not seeing anything wrong.

I'm at a loss on what to do next.. Any advice is appreciated! Thanks...