A ministerial inquiry will be held into how convicted murderer and paedophile Phillip John Smith was able to flee the country, Prime Minister John Key has announced.
Smith left New Zealand on 6 November on a passport obtained under his birth name, Phillip Traynor, and headed to Brazil via Chile.
He left the country while on a 72-hour release from Spring Hill prison in Waikato and the Department of Corrections did not know he was missing until two days later.
He travelled first to Chile and then on to Brazil, where police caught him at the Cidade Maravilhosa Hostel in Rio de Janeiro.
Key said while there were other investigations going on, the Government felt there was a need for a wider, independent inquiry.
State Services Minister Paula Bennett will oversee the inquiry, with the terms of reference and who will lead it to be announced next week.
When he fled prison Smith was serving a sentence for stabbing to death the father of a boy he had been convicted of sexually assaulting.
