Polish spies named on online

Fears have arisen for the safety of Polish spies after a list of names, dating back to the height of the communist era, was published online.

The list of 240,000 names includes spies and informants interviewed by secret police and may even include agents who are still active, according to Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka.

According to Reuters, the archives were kept by the National Remembrance Institute but a journalist copied the names and published them online, sparking national intrigue and frenzied searching to discover exactly who was implicated.

A Reuters report from Warsaw claims the journalist responsible for the leak was Bronislaw Wildstein, a former anti-communist activist.

Belka told the press: "I don't want to be alarmist. On the other hand, I would like to treat with the utmost gravity the possibility of a safety threat to a few or even just one active security agent, especially abroad."

The leak represents the latest high-profile lapse in the protection of sensitive government documents. Last week the Dutch military leaked information relating to phone-tapping after an employee shared them with users of Kazaa.

The previous week the US Department of Homeland Security looked on red-faced as thousands of documents relating to highly classified security information appeared online, searchable on Google.

The files, seen by silicon.com, included information specific to security threats, such as the diversion of planes, the discovery of suspect documents and assorted, possibly terrorist, paraphernalia.