End the RBA cover-up, Brown says

The Australian Greens are demanding a parliamentary investigation into allegations of bribery involving a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank.

Securency International, the maker of polymer banknotes, is alleged to have supplied prostitutes and paid bribes to win contracts.

A federal police witness has told an investigation by The Age newspaper and ABC TV's Four Corners - to be aired on Monday night - that a middleman hired by Securency to win contracts from foreign governments told him that he intended to bribe a central bank governor from an Asian country.

Greens leader Bob Brown said he had repeatedly tried to get parliamentary scrutiny of the allegations, but each time the move had been stymied by the leaders of the two major parties.

"They have refused to have a proper Senate inquiry," he told reporters in Canberra on Monday.

"They have blocked my requests to have the governor of the Reserve Bank brought before the parliamentary estimates."

Senator Brown said he had also written to the chairman of the Senate's economics committee to have RBA Governor Glenn Stevens brought before the committee next week accompanied by agents of Securency.

"These are extraordinarily serious allegations," he said.

"Parliament cannot just put its hand out and say the Reserve Bank and its subsidiary are beyond parliamentary scrutiny." Half the board of Securency is appointed by the Reserve Bank.

Senator Brown said the allegations raised questions about the central bank getting involved in commercial ventures, especially in countries where there was "endemic corruption".

"If the upper house of the Nigerian parliament can have an investigation into this matter, why can't the Australian upper house," he said.

The buck stopped with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, Senator Brown said.

"They may have able to say in the past, we don't know about Senate inquiries, they cannot now."