Thousands of documents from Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption accidentally released by CMC In 1989, Tony Fitzgerald QC presented his inquiry report to then National Party premier Mike Ahern. THOUSANDS of sensitive documents relating to the Fitzgerald inquiry into police corruption in Queensland have been accidentally released by the state's crime watchdog. The error gave the public access to sensitive files about murder suspects, secret informants, undercover agents, drug operations and police corruption. The Crime and Misconduct Commission says it's investigating how the error occurred, The Australian newspaper reports. The paper says the documents were meant to stay secret until about 2055 after the deaths of some of those named in the files. But the paper has been able to review dozens of the files at the Queensland State Archives in Brisbane. They contain numerous unsubstantiated allegations of corruption, rigged trials, drug-smuggling and murders involving senior figures in business, the police, the judiciary and the underworld. Some of those figures are still prominent, the paper says. Most of the material in the files was not aired at the Fitzgerald inquiry in the late 1980s, nor in the subsequent criminal trials. Many confidential informants, protected witnesses, top police, Fitzgerald inquiry staff and investigators, legal and judicial figures, journalists and editors named in the documents are still alive. The paper said a reclassification by the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) saw the files made publicly available through the state archives. The CMC has since issued a new ban on the more than 7000 documents, until about 2055. The Fitzgerald inquiry led to police commissioner Terry Lewis, senior police, business figures and politicians in the Joh Bjelke-Petersen-led National Party government being exposed and jailed for corruption and other offences. One file revolves around the inquiry's investigations into the deaths of prostitutes including Shirley Brifman, a brothel madam who blew the whistle on allegedly corrupt police before she died of a drug overdose. CMC chairman Ross Martin was a Fitzgerald inquiry lawyer who in the late 1980s was involved in re-investigating Brifman's death amid claims of foul play to stop her testifying. Mr Martin told The Australian the CMC would investigate the error that led to the release of the documents. "The review will also seek to determine whether any inappropriate access has occurred," he said.