Speaking on behalf of the HDZ's parliamentary group, Tomislav Culjak wondered if Milanovic supported legality in the work of everyone in the security system or if he wanted to create a police state.

He said the latest "big scandal (is) rocking the national security system."

Culjak said the prime minister still had to say why, as the chair of the National Security Council, he had not convened the council since coming into office, why he had not adopted annual guidelines and a work programme for the security services and the whole security system, and why he relieved of duty the head of the Office of the National Security Council who, Culjak said, had complied with his legal obligation to inspect the Telecommunications Monitoring Centre.

Culjak also wondered, if it was true that the police had requested the phone records of the head of the Security and Intelligence Agency, Josip Buljevic, had the Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic complied with his legal obligation to inform the president and the prime minister of this fact.

Culjak said the HDZ would request that an inquiry commission be set up to investigate the facts in order to overcome the latest scandal.

He said that if European Union practice was to be applied, the interior minister would have resigned already or the prime minister would have demanded his resignation.

Igor Dragovan said on behalf of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SDP) that the truth about the inspection of phone records could only be established through parliamentary supervision, adding that the HDZ's demand for a commission of inquiry further just distorted facts.

He recalled that the parliamentary Domestic Policy and National Security Committee had already requested reports from all relevant subjects in this case, saying that nothing would be kept from the public.

"Our interest is that the services work in line with the law and that they are monitored in line with the law, which is in the democratic interest of Croatian citizens", Dragovan said, adding that for the past nine months the top people in the intelligence community had enjoyed the government's full confidence and that no one had been relieved of duty.

Damir Kajin of the ruling coalition's Istrian Democratic Party (IDS) said the intelligence apparatus should not be so autonomous to the point that there was no control over it. It is necessary to open a discussion in order to remove any doubt about the government's involvement, he said.

The Vecernji List daily ran an article on Sunday claiming that the police, acting under the political leadership of Minister Ostojic, had abused the system of covert gathering of information and spied on several senior officials of the Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA) and several top executives of the Agrokor food and retail group.

The newspaper claimed the abuse was discovered only recently, in a regular inspection of the secret services and the Telecommunications Monitoring Centre conducted by the Office of the National Security Council. The daily claimed the inspection had revealed that officers from the Police Office for the Prevention of Organised Crime and Corruption (PNUSKOK) had abused their powers by adding telephone numbers for SOA officials and Agrokor executives to requests for phone records of persons under criminal investigation.

Ostojic refuted the media reports. President Ivo Josipovic and Prime Minister Milanovic said on Monday the scandal had not undermined national security and that a report they had received on the matter did not indicate that members of organised crime groups were infiltrated in the country's security and law enforcement apparatus. They also said the police had not violated the law in the course of their duties.