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People accused of hacking MPs mobile phones would more suitably be dealt with by the courts than by Parliament, the Commons' most senior official said today.
Giving evidence to the standards and privileges committee this morning, Malcolm Jack said that hacking is a criminal offence.
"I think the remedy is under the law. Hacking is a criminal matter and can be prosecuted in the courts," he said.
MPs are investigating whether alleged hacking of MPs mobile phones by journalists at the News of the World constitutes a breach of parliamentary privilege or contempt of Parliament.
Parliamentary privilege covers the proceedings of Parliament and permits MPs to discuss anything they like in the chamber.
MPs also have the power to impose sanctions on people who interfere with a their ability to do their job through means such as bribery or threats.
But Jack told the committee that there was very "little precedent" on the issue of phone hacking, and it was unclear in what situations it would constitute contempt or a breach of privilege.
He suggested that it would only apply if the eavesdropping took place on calls or messages that directly related to a MPs work in the Commons and not if it just related to general conversations.
And Jack said it was not clear what sanction Parliament could practically impose.
"I think there's a rather difficult distinction about whether the House is a court of record and therefore has the right to impose fines," he said.
And he said it was "out of the question" the House of Commons would put someone behind bars.
"The House would simply not imprison someone if such a thing arose," he said.
Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson resigned when the scandal first came to light, though he has consistently denied he had any knowledge of the practice - he is now head of communications at 10 Downing St.
The police investigated the paper's activities and as a result two men, the paper's Royal correspondent Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, a private detective, were prosecuted for unlawfully intercepting the voice mail messages of senior members of the Royal household.
A recent report in the New York Times said journalists hacked the phones of hundreds of high-profile people, among them senior British politicians.
Jack told the committee the he was minded to support the introduction of legislation to put parliamentary privilege on a statutory footing in order to stop the "gradual encroachment" of the courts into the realm of Parliament.
"The lack of a Privileges act is begging to become an impediment to our arguing these are matters of privileges," he said.
"The existence of an act may actually define territory in such a way it will be clearer to courts and Parliament where their respective jurisdictions begin and end."
The coalition recently published a draft Parliamentary Privileges Bill designed to reform the law on parliamentary privilege to clarify its extent and application.
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