The Democratic Unionist Party has called on the government to examine the role of the Police Ombudsman in Ulster.

The request came ahead of the publication of a survey by the Northern Ireland Research Agency, which found that 44 per cent of police officers believed Nuala O'Loan acts partially in her judgements of complaints.

In contrast, only 13 per cent believed she acts impartially.

The report is expected to be published later this month.

"There are two worrying things about this," said DUP policing spokesman Sammy Wilson.

"The first is that Nuala O'Loan carried out this survey a year ago and it's been buried since then.

"The second thing is that she has got a statutory obligation to ensure that the public have confidence in her office, because they are the ones being investigated.

"Quite clearly, the police do not have confidence in the office which is meant to be investigating the complaints against them."

A spokesman for the Police Ombudsman called on all parties to wait for complete publication of the survey's results.

"There are findings in the survey which are encouraging and very positive and there are others which are less so," he said.

"I know the Police Federation feels the same. For that reason, we had agreed that we go forward together on this issue, indeed we are waiting for further consultation with the federation before making the document public."

"When the public get the complete findings from the survey they will be much better informed," he added.