An independent report into child sex abuse in Dutch Catholic institutions in the Netherlands has identified tens of thousands of alleged victims and 800 alleged perpetrators.

Tens of thousands of minors were exposed to "mild, severe or very severe sexual behaviour" by clergy or lay workers in the Dutch Catholic Church over a 65-year period between 1945 and 2010, the commission said in its final report.

The independent commission said the abuse occurred in Catholic schools, seminaries and orphanages since World War II.

"Based on 1,795 reports, the commission could find the names of 800 abusers who work or have worked for Roman Catholic bishops in The Netherlands," the report said.

Most were priests, but the figure also includes lay workers. "Of these 800 people, at least 105 are still alive."

"It's an absolutely enormous figure," said former education minister Wim Deetman, who chaired the six-person commission including a former judge, university professors and a psychologist that began its inquiry last year.

Mr Deetman said it was up to prosecutors to decide if the surviving alleged abusers should face criminal charges.

Claims of alleged sexual abuse examined by the inquiry went from "light physical contact to penetration," he said.

Dutch bishops expressed their regrets and offered "sincere apologies" to the victims.

"This episode fills us with shame and sorrow," the bishops conference said in a statement, adding that they were "shocked by the sexual abuse of minors and the practices detailed in this report".

Based on an examination of Church archives, Mr Deetman said that the problem of sexual abuse had been "on the agenda of episcopal meetings" since the 1940s.

"The Dutch Catholic Church knew what was happening and tried to resolve the problem," but the appropriate actions were never taken, Mr Deetman told a press conference in The Hague.

A taboo on discussing sexuality in society until the 1960s and the Catholic Church's "closed" administrative structure were in part responsible for religious authorities' passive response to the problem, the commission said.

"Then again, people simply could not believe that a religious person could do that," said Mr Deetman.

The former minister said the inquiry came to no conclusion about a direct link between priestly celibacy and sexual abuse, but the commission's report said celibacy posed a risk and led to a "need for sexuality".

Mr Deetman said the risk of sexual abuse was "twice as high" for minors attending boarding schools than for others, but he stressed that the problem also existed in non-Catholic boarding schools.

The Dutch bishops conference said that "many more steps have to follow" in the wake of the report, including "clear codes of conduct and prevention programmes" in the training of priests.

Latest scandal

The Catholic Church has been rocked by revelations of widespread sexual abuse of minors in several countries in recent years, including the United States, Germany, Ireland, Belgium and Austria.

In 2004, a criminal inquiry established there were 4,400 paedophile priests in the United States between 1950 and 2002, putting the number of their child victims at 11,000.

Ireland, one of the most staunchly Catholic countries in Europe, has seen a series of crises, leading Pope Benedict XVI to publicly rebuke its bishops for a "breakdown of trust".

A total of 14,500 Irish children are reported to have been victims of abuse by clergy.

In neighbouring Belgium, the Church was rocked in April 2010 with revelations that the bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, had abused a nephew for 13 years and then a Church-backed commission revealed hundreds of cases of alleged sexual abuse of minors by clergy and church workers, and 13 suicides by abuse victims.

Dutch bishops decided in 2010 to open an inquiry after revelations of widespread abuse in the Netherlands were first reported in the national press

In February, a Catholic order in the Netherlands said it would pay compensation to more than two dozen victims of sexual abuse committed by its priests.

The Order of Salesians of Don Bosco reached a deal to make "generous" restitution to individuals who fell victim to sexual abuse by priests as pupils at its boarding schools between 1950 and 1971, a joint statement said.

Estimates of the number of victims of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church was based on a survey of more than 34,000 Dutch people aged 40 and over, representative of Dutch society.

A committee set up to advise the Church on compensation reported last June that victims should receive up to 100,000 Euros, depending on the severity of the abuse.

ABC/wires