The initial report into the accounts of MG Rover will be handed to the Department of Trade and Industry this week amid demands that it should be published in full.
The Financial Reporting Review Panel's analysis of the Rover accounts is said to have raised a number of concerns which it believes require further investigation.
According to reports, the watchdog has not officially interviewed the four Midlands businessmen - known as the Phoenix Four - who bought Rover for £10 in 2000.
MG Rover's collapse last month caused the loss of more than 5,000 jobs at the company's Longbridge plant and jeopardised the livelihoods of thousands more people at suppliers and car dealers.
News that the first official investigation into Rover's accounts will be passed to Alan Johnson comes as the new trade and industry secretary prepared to meet executives of another once-great British manufacturer now fallen on hard times.
Telecoms equipment manufacturer Marconi will meet DTI officials and Mr Johnson today. It comes after Marconi announced plans to cut 800 UK staff and put the business up for sale following its failure to clinch a crucial contract with BT.
The meeting comes amid growing fears among staff that Marconi's recently announced partnership with Chinese equipment group Huawei, which did secure business with BT, could lead to further job losses.
Meanwhile, union leaders and shadow trade and industry secretary David Willetts will push Mr Johnson to publish the FRRP report into Rover.
A spokesman for the DTI said: "While we have to be as open and transparent as possible a final decision on publishing will depend on the findings and what if any further action needs to be taken."
Speculation over the weekend was that the DTI will launch its own preliminary investigation after receiving the FRRP's report. But Mr Johnson is understood to be resisting calls for a lengthy and expensive full-scale inquiry. A full DTI inquiry would require the appointment of an external inspector.
The remit of the FRRP investigation was limited. Within days of Rover's collapse the panel, run by the Financial Reporting Council, was asked by the then trade secretary Patricia Hewitt to investigate the company's accounts .
FRC executives stressed that the review should not be regarded as a detailed investigation into any alleged financial irregularities at Rover.
The FRRP was asked purely to look at whether the company's accounts were properly prepared, not to rule on the business practices at Rover.
Last Friday Mr Willetts wrote to Mr Johnson urging that the FRRP's report be made public. A spokesman for Mr Willetts yesterday added: "It is essential that all the workers at MG Rover know exactly what has gone on."
