  {\bf Background:} Deuteron induced reactions are widely used to probe nuclear
structure and astrophysical information. Those (d,p) reactions may be viewed as
three-body reactions and described with Faddeev techniques.
  {\bf Purpose:} Faddeev equations in momentum space have a long tradition of
utilizing separable interactions in order to arrive at sets of coupled integral
equations in one variable. However, it needs to be demonstrated that their
solution based on separable interactions agrees exactly with solutions based on
non-separable forces.
  {\bf Results:} The ground state of $^6$Li is calculated via momentum space
Faddeev equations using the CD-Bonn neutron-proton force and a Woods-Saxon type
neutron(proton)-$^4$He force. For the latter the Pauli-forbidden $S$-wave bound
state is projected out. This result is compared to a calculation in which the
interactions in the two-body subsystems are represented by separable
interactions derived in the Ernst-Shakin-Thaler framework.
  {\bf Conclusions:} We find that calculations based on the separable
representation of the interactions and the original interactions give results
that agree to four significant figures for the binding energy, provided an
off-shell extension of the EST representation is employed in both subsystems.
The momentum distributions computed in both approaches also fully agree with
each other.
