Australian legislators called for an independent probe Wednesday on allegations that the senior executives of the country's central bank tried to cover up the note-printing scandals that rocked the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) in mid-2009.

In an issued statement, Australian Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt said in light of the latest development on the matter "we need a full-scale inquiry to clear the air and remove the cloud hanging over the RBA."

Mr Bandt was reacting to reports published by Fairfax Media and state-owned ABC, which alleged that RBA deputy governor Ric Battellino got wind of the bribery scandal that led to the criminal charging of eight ranking executives from Note Printing Australia and Securency International Pty.

According to Bloomberg, RBA is full owner of Note Printing while it maintains 50 per cent holdings on Securency.

Former officials of the two subsidiaries face charges of conspiring to bribe bank officials from foreign countries to win lucrative contracts on producing plastic bank notes, Agence France Presse (AFP) said in a report today.

The scandal broke out in 2009 but it appears that Mr Battellino was aware of the activity way before the Australian media picked up and published the story, which paved the way for the entry of the Australian Federal Police (AFP), reports by ABC and Fairfax said.

It was also suggested that RBA governor Glenn Stevens was informed but elected not to disclose anything when he testified before the Parliament in 2011.

But in a statement the RBA sent to Bloomberg, the central bank insisted that it "responded appropriately," to the allegations of wrongdoings.

"The bank rejects the implication that the governor or other officers of the bank have misled the parliamentary panel," the bank also stressed in the same statement.

The RBA also explained that the documents in question was in fact gathered at the behest of Mr Battellino but was not turned over to police investigators.

The reason, according to the RBA, was due to the fact that "this document is part of the evidence in current proceedings before the court."

"The Reserve Bank is prohibited from disclosing it pursuant to the normal rules of court and an order of the Supreme Court," the RBA statement was quoted by AFP as saying.

Notwithstanding the clarification from the central bank, Mr Bandt said an inquiry must be established since "there are claims that tens of millions of dollars of public money has been spent illegally, bribing foreign officials."

"This scandal touches the key financial institution in this country, as well as other arms of government ... and we need to have complete confidence that the highest governance standards exist in the RBA," the statement from the Greens lawmaker said.

He immediately found an ally on independent Senator Nick Xenophon, who told reporters that the gravity of the scandal definitely merits the attention of deeper investigation.

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