Foreign Secretary Robin Cook will open Monday's debate on the intelligence services, including MI5 and MI6, following the publication of the Commons' Security and Intelligence Committee's report last month.

The report contained a number of recommendations, including extending committee's powers from overseeing the security services to being able to investigate them.

David Shayler: Wanted under the Official Secrets Act

The government is expected to reject the call but has implied each request will be considered on its own merits.

The committee, which reports annually on the work of the intelligence agencies, is determined to maintain the pressure for increased and investigative powers.

It claims investigative powers are essential to reinforce the public confidence in the parliamentary oversight system set up four years ago under the Tories.

The report also considers why there are so many "whistle-blowers" such as former MI5 agent David Shayler, who is wanted in the UK to face charges under the Official Secrets Act following his revelations about his activities.

The accountability of the agencies and their ability to hold information on people, is also called into question.

If agencies have any information of national security on file regarding candidates for ministerial office they will tip off the prime minister.

The disclosure of this practice in the report was the first time that it has been publicly acknowledged.

Mr Shayler revealed last year that the agency held files on Home Secretary Jack Straw and Peter Mandelson, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, on the grounds that they were once considered subversive.

Peter Mandelson: Investigated by intelligence services

The fact MI6 holds 86,000 files, half of which relate to UK citizens, dating back to 1909, is seen as an infringement of individual rights by civil liberty groups.

In advance of the report's publication, the head of MI6, Sir David Spedding, persuaded the prime minister key sections of the agency's evidence should be removed for security reasons.

The committee has also recommended an industrial tribunal be established to deal with "disaffected" members of the secret agencies.

At present no staff member has the right to take the government to a normal employment tribunal if they are involved in a dispute.

Richard Tomlinson, the MI6 officer who was dismissed from the Secret Intelligence Service in 1995 and subsequently sentenced to 12 months in prison under the Official Secrets Act for trying to sell a book about his career, attempted to take his case to a tribunal.