In this paper, we investigate the impact of using improper Gaussian signaling (IGS) scheme on the interweave cognitive radio (CR) paradigm when the cognitive user has access to full or partial channel-state-information (CSI). Throughout this work, we analyze the performance of both the primary user (PU) and secondary user (SU) in terms of instantaneous achievable rate and outage probability, for given sensing and detection capabilities. Then, we optimize the IGS scheme for full and partial CSI scenarios to maximize the achievable rate of the SU while maintaining a minimum quality-of-service (QoS) requirement for the PU. Meanwhile, we derive the corresponding feasibility conditions for the interweave cognitive radio system operation. IGS based systems are proven to provide notable gain over the conventional proper Gaussian signaling, which is considered our benchmark scheme. The IGS scheme is observed to be further beneficial at low SU detection capabilities, strong interference from the cognitive user to the licensed user, and low gain of the PU direct link.