One recruit wore a Ku Klux Klan mask in a recent BBC programme

The move follows the broadcast of a BBC documentary exposing racism at a police training college in Cheshire.

CRE chairman Trevor Phillips said public confidence in the police had been "severely shaken", and that the inquiry would be "transparent, focused and timely".

It will be carried out by a small team of commissioners and is expected to produce recommendations by spring 2004.

The documentary, The Secret Policeman, which was broadcast last week, featured one police recruit wearing a mock Ku Klux Klan hood.

Since it was shown, six police officers from the Greater Manchester, Cheshire and North Wales forces have resigned and two have been suspended.

A Scotland Yard recruit also resigned and a special constable in the Surrey force was sacked.

This... is a tragedy for the many young police officers who have joined in the hoping of protecting and improving their communities Trevor Phillips, CRE chairman

The CRE has written to all 43 chief constables in England and Wales asking them for reassurance about the measures they have in place for rooting out racism within their forces.

They will also be asked what they do about officers who display racist attitudes.

Announcing the inquiry on Thursday, Mr Phillips said police forces in the UK had spent 137,000 days on race and diversity training, according to Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary.

Failures

"Unfortunately, no-one has taken the trouble to evaluate whether this training did any good," he said.

"Frankly the worst part of this is that I would guess that the people who have suffered the greatest loss of confidence are not ethnic minority Britons, whose expectations of the police were already regrettably low, but everyone else.

"I think this too is a tragedy for the many young police officers who have joined in the hoping of protecting and improving their communities.

"Today, because of the actions and failures of others they stand accused by the very communities they hoped to serve."

The CRE says much of the inquiry is expected to be public but, given the subjects with which we are dealing, some evidence may need to be taken in private.