The Commission for Racial Equality is to launch a formal inquiry into the entire police service of England and Wales.
It will be carried out by a small team of commissioners and is expected to produce recommendations by spring 2004.
In the meantime, the CRE has written to all 43 chief constables in England and Wales asking them for reassurance about the measures they have in place for rooting out racism within their forces.
They will also be asked what they do about officers who display racist attitudes.
The move was announced by CRE chairman Trevor Phillips, following a BBC documentary exposing racism at a police training college in Cheshire.
Since the programme was broadcast, six police officers from the Greater Manchester, Cheshire and North Wales forces have resigned and two have been suspended.
A Scotland Yard recruit also resigned and a special constable in the Surrey force was sacked.
The film, The Secret Policeman, showed one police recruit wearing a mock Ku Klux Klan hood and insulting the parents of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence.
Home Secretary David Blunkett said the racism was "horrendous" and urged better training for recruits.
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