Fresh accusations of wrongdoings further deepened the existing woes of global media firm News Corporation, which has yet to put behind the hacking scandals that led to the closure of its major daily in the United Kingdom.

Allegations that News Corp has been conducting activities that undermine its competitors emerged in UK this week, courtesy of a BBC documentary, which was quickly followed by a report in Australia apparently pointing fingers to the James Murdoch-owned company as a party to digital piracy.

A BBC Panorama documentary report revealed on Monday that NDS, formerly a News Corp subsidiary recently acquired by Cisco, actively played a key role in the online leaking of ITV Digital's encryption code, leading to its demise in 2002.

ITV Digital was a direct competitor of Sky TV, also owned by Murdoch, Reuters said.

Again, NDS emerged as the lead player in the alleged illegal activities of a covert group known as Operational Security, which the AFR report said was established to combat piracy moves directed against News Corp operations.

The report by AFR, a publication under Fairfax Media and a direct competitor of News Corp's Australian arm News Ltd, instead suggested that NDS had presided over activities that saw the employment of hackers to steal codes of News Corp's rival pay TV firms.

Those codes were then loaded into reconfigured smartcards and were marketed for consumers to gain free program access from services of News Corp competitors, AFR said.

The report also revealed that NDS, where James Murdoch once served as director, hired former police and intelligence officers to man the illegal functions of Operational Security.

"NDS sabotaged business rivals, fabricated legal actions and obtained telephone records illegally," the AFR report said, adding that its four-year probe was backed by thousands of email exchanges provided by former Australian police officer it identified as Ray Adams.

Mr Adams also served as Operational Security's European chief for six years, AFR said.

The allegations immediately attracted the attention of Australian and UK officials, with Communication Minister Stephen Conroy asking the Australian police to step in and investigate further.

"These are serious allegations, and any allegations of criminal activity should be referred to the AFP (Australian Federal police) for investigation," Mr Conroy's office said on Wednesday.

In a statement, the AFP said it has yet to receive a formal referral on the matter but it is presently cooperating with UK investigators regarding certain inquiries.

In Britain, British lawmaker Tom Watson called on Ofcom, the nation's telecommunication regulator to look into the allegations made by the BBC Panorama report.

"These allegations, if true, are the most serious yet and I am referring the matter to Ofcom, who have a duty to investigate as part of their fit and proper test," Mr Watson told Reuters on Tuesday.

News Corp, on one hand, has yet to counter the AFR allegations but its Australian subsidiary, News Ltd, issued a statement claiming that AFR's work was "full of factual inaccuracies, flawed references, fanciful conclusions and baseless accusations which have been disproved in overseas courts."

NDS, on the other hand, said in a statement that "it is wrong to claim that NDS has ever been in the possession of any codes for the purpose of promoting hacking or piracy," referring to the BBC Panorama report.

"NDS has consistently denied any wrongdoing to Panorama and we fully accept their assurances," News Corp told Reuters in supporting the stance taken by NDS.