Home Office minister Tony McNulty has apologised for not knowing sooner about the massive backlog of criminal records from Britons convicted in Europe.
Mr McNulty accepted there had been "failures" in the department and said he was "more than happy" for letters to be published in which police apparently raised concerns to ministers - but only after an internal inquiry had been completed.
He also admitted he could not be certain that there were not similar problems with notifications that Britons had been convicted of crimes in other parts of the world such as the US and Thailand.
Mr McNulty told BBC Radio 4's Any Questions: "I apologise for the failures that there have been in terms of ministers not knowing about the backlog. I think that's right, and (it) should not have happened in public policy terms."
Mr McNulty said he had been sent a letter from the Association of Chief Police Officers in October warning of difficulties in processing conviction information from foreign countries.
However, he insisted he only saw the letter personally two days ago, after ACPO put out a statement confirming its existence.
"It was passed, as is totally normal if it's not someone's area, on to (Joan Ryan, minister responsible for the Criminal Record Bureau), who answered and answered it in an entirely appropriate fashion."
The letter apparently suggested that Home Secretary John Reid should be informed of the situation, but Ms Ryan has admitted that she did not take that advice.
The Tories and Liberal Democrats have called on the Government to publish all correspondence between ACPO and minister immediately.
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But Mr McNulty indicated he did not believe that should happen until after the department had completed its own investigation into the controversy - expected to take six weeks.
