Justice Minister Clemente Mastella has tasked government inspectors with establishing whether ministry staff were involved in a network accused of illegally gathering data on thousands of Italians.
Police arrested 21 people on Wednesday in connection with a Milan probe into illegal phone tapping which has now widened to other sorts of 'spying'. Two of those arrested were senior executives in Telecom Italia and its parent company Pirelli .
Investigators say a massive archive of reserved information was accumulated thanks to the network's ability to access supposedly secret bank, tax, phone and judicial records .
Italian newspapers reported on Thursday that the operation made use of compliant officials in ministries such as justice and the interior, where there were extensive databases .
Mastella praised Milanese investigators for their work and said he had ordered an internal enquiry aimed at "establishing the truth of the reports and, if necessary, the precise scope of the affair" .
He stressed that the activity alleged by prosecutors constituted "a serious breach of civil and democratic liberties" .
Interior Minister Guliano Amato said he would order no internal probe for now, saying that many details of the investigation remained unclear .
Those arrested on Wednesday included the former head of security at Telecom Italia, Luciano Tavaroli; the current head of security at Pirelli, Pierguido Iezzi; and the owner of a private investigations firm, Emanuele Cipriani .
The others were members or ex-members of police forces, including the finance guards, and finance ministry officials .
THOUSANDS 'SPIED ON' .
They are accused of corruption and illegally obtaining information from several official databanks on thousands of Italians - from business leaders and sports stars to ordinary Telecom employees .
Why this information was amassed remains unclear .
Tavaroli and Cipriani, allegedly central figures in the data collecting operation, were scheduled to be questioned by prosecutors on Friday .
Phone-tapping, the leaking of phone transcripts to newspapers and industrial espionage have been in the public eye over the last year thanks to a series of judicial investigations .
Amid growing concern that supposedly classified information on citizens is apparently far too accessible, the Senate's justice committee has carried out an enquiry .
Cesare Salvi, head of the committee, said the investigation's findings showed that systems used for phone taps were "extremely vulnerable" to unauthorised access .
