A parliamentary inquiry opening today in Berlin will investigate whether German diplomats in eastern Europe helped people-smuggling gangs to provide visas for prostitutes and other black economy workers to enter Germany.

Opposition Christian Democrat legislators who initiated the inquiry told the Financial Times that "tens of thousands" of visas had been illegally issued in recent years from German embassies in Russia, Ukraine, Albania and elsewhere. German prosecutors are investigating misconduct by several embassy employees, according to media reports, although the CDU argued that lax visa procedures - rather than criminal activity by diplomats - were the main source of the problem.