African Christian Democratic Party chief whip Louis Green may face contempt of parliament charges after he divulged proceedings of a closed meeting of parliament's ethics committee in what appears to be an astonishing breach of parliamentary rules.

The committee, which met on Monday, is investigating complaints against Deputy President Jacob Zuma, including an allegation that he failed to declare his business interests and benefits received, in contravention of parliament's code of conduct.

According to reliable sources, the committee heard on Monday that Zuma was not required to declare loans he may have received from his friend and financial adviser Schabir Shaik in parliament's register of members' interests.

He is instead required to declare loans in a confidential register in terms of the Executive Members Ethics Act.

But after Monday's meeting Green issued a press statement saying "many of the documents supporting Deputy President Jacob Zuma's claims that payments made to him were interest-bearing loans were only recently drawn up.

"Documentation submitted to members of parliament's ethics committee indicates that the payments made to the deputy president were loans.

"However, on further questioning by the committee about the date of the loan agreements, it appears that payments were made based on verbal agreements and many of the written documents were drawn up only recently," Green said.

MPs across party lines were flabbergasted at Green's apparent indiscretion.

MPs usually respect the confidentiality of closed meetings and members of the ethics committee are even more scrupulous about this because they take an oath not to disclose the contents of the confidential section of the register.

Chief whip of the Democratic Alliance Douglas Gibson said yesterday that Green had been "unwise and irresponsible".

"The other members of the ethics committee abided by their oath of confidentiality.

"One would have expected that the ACDP representative would have done the same."

Parliament's spokesperson Luphumzo Kebeni confirmed that complaints against Green had been lodged with national assembly Speaker Frene Ginwala.

Green said in a statement late yesterday that he had received a phone call from ethics committee chairman Luwellyn Landers saying he would recommend that Green be suspended from the committee.

"The information relates specifically to my statement that the documents indicating that payments made to the deputy president were loans, were only drawn up recently," Green said.

"I am unsure of the exact rule of the ethics committee that was breached, as none of this information is classified.

"All the information that was given to the press should be in the public domain, because this matter is in the public interest and they are demanding information and a process of transparency," Green said.

"Members of the committee should not be muzzled on what is happening and all political parties have the right to make political comment on issues that are not classified," said Green in justification of his actions.

With acknowledgements to Andre Koopman and the Cape Times.