The National Public Safety Commission, Japan's highest institution on internal security, announced Thursday it will set up a panel to review the nation's police system following a series of high-profile scandals.

The panel, tentatively called the Council on the Reform of Police Systems, will have six members, including former Chief Cabinet Secretary Masaharu Gotoda and Kohei Nakabo, lawyer and former president of the government-run Resolution and Collection Corp., said Kosuke Hori, chairman of the commission and minister of home affairs.

Nakabo was appointed Tuesday by Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi as his special adviser on monetary and environmental issues.

The other members are Seiichiro Ujiie, president of Nippon Television Network Corp.; Masasuke Omori, former director general of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau; Hirotaro Higuchi, honorary chairman of Asahi Breweries Ltd.; and journalist Eiko Oya.

The council will hold its inaugural meeting by the end of this month, Hori told reporters.

Government plans to set up a third-party panel to reform police systems were revealed Wednesday by Obuchi, who said he wants the panel to consider various issues, including the current promotion system for so-called "career" police officials and a shakeup of the National Public Safety Commission.

Career police officials, those who pass the Category I exam to become elite bureaucrats, occupy most of the posts of chief in the 47 prefectural police headquarters, because they are on a much faster promotion track than their "noncareer" colleagues who are hired by local police.

Of the 220,000 police officers nationwide, only 520 are career officials.

The commission, which oversees the National Police Agency, has been under fire for its handling of a scandal involving the Niigata force.

It was first criticized for deciding to punish only one of two senior police officers who continued drinking and playing mah-jongg at a hotel on Jan. 28 after being informed that an abducted woman was rescued in Niigata Prefecture after more than nine years in captivity.

The latest criticism aimed at the commission is that it did not meet on Feb. 25 when it decided on the penalty. Hori revealed earlier this week that commission members approved the penalty separately and without discussion.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is considering a proposal to make the commission chairman an independent Cabinet post, rather than one concurrently occupied by the home affairs minister, LDP sources said.

The proposal will also be considered by the council on police reforms and could be introduced by the Cabinet to be formed after the next Lower House election, the sources said. The poll must be held by mid-October.

Obuchi indicated Thursday afternoon that the proposal on the independent Cabinet post was one worth studying.

"The question of whether the current arrangement is good or not should be studied" in light of the recent scandals, Obuchi told reporters at his official residence.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Mikio Aoki, however, was quick to point out that Obuchi only meant to say the proposal was one of many ideas for reforming the panel.

"The prime minister meant to say that the matter should be considered from a wide-ranging viewpoint," the top government spokesman said at a news conference. "He did not mean that he plans to move toward implementing the proposal."

Some LDP members and government officials say commission chairmen have failed to exercise leadership and fulfill their roles as a government representatives in the six-member commission, partly because they also needed to serve other posts and are unable to be fully involved in police administration, the sources said.

The plan could go against recent government efforts to reduce the number of ministers.