yeah, cakephp is a framework, support nana clean url's out of the box.
It maps like this :
www.yoursite.com/[model]/[action]/[param1]/[param2] (example:
www.yoursite.com/products/browse/necklaces)
ma customize sad nimo (through routing, naa ra sa documentation).
And if you really want to roll your own and not use cake or drupal here's a brief overview / tutorial from devshed :
http://www.devshed.com/c/a/Apache/Ge...-0-Part-III/2/
There's probably a more complete tutorial on their site but their search sucks.