The chair of Britain's home affairs select committee today launched a new inquiry into the use of unauthorised phone hacking.
Committee chairman Keith Vaz announced the move after hearing evidence from Asst Comm John Yates, the senior police officer involved in the original investigation.
The parliamentary committee is to investigate further allegations of the unauthorised tapping of mobile phones by journalists at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World newspaper.
Asst Comm Yates said the Metropolitan police will interview Andy Coulson, who resigned as editor of the News of the World in 2007 when two employees were jailed for tapping the mobile phones of prominent people.
Former reporter Sean Hoare told the New York Times that Mr Coulson, now Prime Minister David
Cameron's head of communications, asked him to tap phones.
Mr Coulson has said he did not know calls were being tapped by reporters working for him.
"The evidence of Assistant Commissioner John Yates today raised a number of questions of importance about the law on phone hacking, the way the police deal with such breaches of the law and the manner in which victims are informed of those breaches," Mr Vaz said in a statement.
"I hope that this inquiry will clarify all these important areas."
Asst Comm Yates told the committee it is very difficult to prosecute cases of tapping mobile phones.
He also said the police have written to the New York Times to ask the newspaper to hand over evidence gathered by reporters for the story.
"The New York Times have announced that they're not prepared to help us on the basis of journalistic privilege," Ass Comm Yates told committee members.
Agencies