Italian cycling star Ivan Basso, who made a semi-confession of drug use earlier this week, has been placed under investigation under Italy's strict anti-doping laws.
A prosecutor in Busto Arsizio north of Milan is probing whether the 2006 Giro d'Italia winner broke an Italian law banning the use of performance-enhancing drugs or unjustified medical treatment, judicial sources said Thursday.
A legal source said the prosecutors were "only following due process".
The investigators near Basso's home town of Gallarate were already sniffing around the case.
Earlier this year they ascertained that Birillo (Skittle) was in fact the name of Basso's dog - a name found in a major Spanish doping investigation last year.
Meanwhile Basso was put through the wringer for three hours at the Rome HQ of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI), where he made his admission of so-called 'attempted doping' earlier this week.
CONI sources said Basso had been asked to clarify discrepancies between his Tuesday statement and evidence collected in last year's Spanish drug sting that belatedly led to his confession.
Basso's lawyer declined to comment, other than saying it was "a cordial chat, between gentlemen".
Despite his claims that he he had never in fact used doping techniques, Tuesday's confession was hailed as the first time a top cyclist had come clean in a sport that has been dogged by drugs scandals.
Basso was excluded from last year's Tour de France after being implicated in Operacion Puerto along with former Tour winner Jan Ullrich of Germany - who recently retired - and 50 other professional riders.
The probe into the activities of Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes uncovered steroids, transfusion equipment and bags of blood.
Basso, 29, admitted some of those bags of blood were his but claimed he had never used them.
The cyclist, who had previously denied any wrongdoing, said the 'attempted doping' was an act of "weakness that will stay with me all of my life".
The rider said he decided to confess because the case had caused "a year of turmoil, greater than glory and money, and not because my back was against the wall".
CONI praised Basso's courage in breaking the sport's code of silence - which it likened to the Sicilian Mafia's omerta' - concerning doping.
Basso faces a ban of up to two years although his offer to cooperate may lead to softer punishment.
His confession is another blow to the credibility of a sport that has been ravaged by scandals in recent years.
Almost one year after the event, American cyclist Floyd Landis risks being stripped of last year's Tour de France crown and banned after testing positive during the race.
Landis's case has dragged on as he has put up a determined battle to defend himself.
The most illustrious, and ultimately tragic, victim of doping scandals was Italy's Marco 'the Pirate' Pantani.
Pantani's career peaked when he won the Tour and the Giro in 1998, emulating legends like Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartoli - only to take a downturn into doping scandals when he was thrown off the 1999 Giro on the eve of winning it again.
After several aborted comebacks that disappointed his legions of fans, he died of a cocaine overdose in 2004.
