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Brisbane City Council is spending $14,500 each month having private detectives investigate its staff.

In the five months from December 2008 and April 2009, Brisbane City Council's Ethical Standards Unit spent more than $72,200 investigating allegations raised against its employees.

The allegations included fraud, misuse of council equipment and complaints about the allocation of council contracts.

In one case Brisbane City Council spent $137,961 after the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) ordered Brisbane City Council to employ private detective firms.

Brisbane City Council engages the CMC whenever allegations of internal fraud or misconduct are raised, a council spokesperson said.

Four firms were used between December 2008 and April 2009.

In May 2008 the CMC asked Brisbane City Council to have allegations against two council staff and a contractor investigated.

At the time Lord Mayor Campbell Newman estimated the inquiry would take three weeks, but by March 2009 no further information was given to councillors, except advice a cheque for $90,000 had been paid to Price Waterhouse Coopers.

Questions were asked in yesterday's Finance Committee meeting about the state of that inquiry.

According to Brisbane City Council, the two council employers have since been cleared of any wrong doing and the contractor is now being investigated by the CMC.

"The $90,000 cheque relates to a CMC investigation into allegations of official misconduct against two council officers and a council contractor," a council spokesman said.

"The total cost of this investigation has been $137,961.00. Council is not expecting any more costs on top of this," he said.

"The allegations of official misconduct against the two council officers were ruled to be without foundation, however the CMC investigation into the contractor is still ongoing."

The council said $9388.60 of the $72,200 was for an investigation into one allegation of fraud, but would not outline what matters the other investigations were examining.

A council spokesman said it was wrong for Brisbane City Council to investigate allegations against its own staff.

However Council Opposition Leader Cr Shayne Sutton said Brisbane City Council refused to answer any questions about the investigations.

"These are investigations that are being conducted by Council's Ethical Standards Unit and given the importance of Council integrity and the amount of money being spent, I think there is an onus on the council administration to provide further detail about the investigations," Cr Sutton said.

She said she was not aware of the outcomes of any of the investigations, nor whether council staff had been cleared or charged.

"If there has not been a single outcome where someone has been charged, are we being overly officious?" she said.

"Or, if people are being charged all the time, what is going wrong?"