Government ministers and BBC bosses will be questioned in public about their treatment of Dr David Kelly.

The law lord appointed to investigate the civil servant's death announced yesterday he would not hold his inquiry behind closed doors.

Lord Hutton asserted the independence of his inquiry with a declaration that he would decide the scope of his questions and the choice of witnesses "as I see fit within my terms of reference".

He promised to hold his investigation into the Government weapons expert's apparent suicide "mostly in public" and to publish a report "as soon as possible".

Prime Minister Tony Blair immediately confirmed his readiness to give evidence in public, and to break off from a family holiday in Barbados to do so if necessary.

Downing Street made clear it expected Lord Hutton to stick closely to the terms set by Mr Blair - "urgently to conduct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Kelly".

But opponents of the war said that his death could not be explained without reference to the Government's handling of intelligence information in the run-up to the conflict.

Dr Kelly's body was found in woodland near his Oxfordshire home on Friday, three days after he gave evidence to a parliamentary inquiry. A coroner heard yesterday he died the previous day due to loss of blood from a cut to his left wrist.

The BBC has confirmed that he was the main source for a controversial May 29 report by reporter Andrew Gilligan, alleging the Government had exaggerated intelligence evidence on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

However, Dr Kelly told MPs shortly before his death that he did not believe the allegations could have come from the briefing he gave Mr Gilligan.

In a statement on his plans for the conduct of the inquiry, Lord Hutton said: "It will be for me to decide as I think right within my terms of reference the matters which will be the subject of my investigation.

"I intend to sit in public in the near future to state how I intend to conduct the inquiry and to consider the extent to which interested parties and bodies should be represented by counsel or solicitors."

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said: "Clearly, in getting to the bottom of this tragedy, Lord Hutton will have to touch on some of the wider aspects of the case the Government made for going to war."

He warned "all hell will break loose" if the Government sought to impede any line of inquiry Lord Hutton chose to pursue or to deny him access to information.

A Downing Street spokesman said: "It's up to Lord Hutton to decide who he wants to talk to."

But he indicated that the inquiry's remit was tightly focused on the Kelly affair.