Victoria's Police Chief Commissioner, Simon Overland, has rejected allegations that information he divulged from a secret phone tap derailed a murder investigation.

Mr Overland has been accused of divulging the information to former police media boss, Stephen Linnell, in a bid to prevent an embarrassing leak from becoming public.

Mr Linnell deduced that the information came from a phone tap on senior police and police union officials.

It is claimed news of the tap then made its way back to the targets of the murder investigation, known as Operation Briars.

Mr Overland says Mr Linnell was already aware of the investigation.

"At that time, Linnell was the media director for Victoria Police. He was a senior and trusted employee," he told Fairfax radio.

"I had no reason to doubt him. He was part of the Briars reference group that was put in place to manage this issue."

The Australian newspaper reports today that the Office of Police Integrity has ruled that there was no illegality in Mr. Overland's actions in inadvertently revealing the phone intercepts authorised under Operation Briars.

Mr Overland also denies doing it for personal reasons to deflect attention away from rumours that he was going to take a trip to France.

"We were under collateral attack from the very people we were investigating from word go," he said.

"This notion that somehow I've compromised the investigation is not right. This notion that I actually passed information on to Linnell for personal reasons, is not right."

He accuses The Australian Newspaper of running a concerted and "disgraceful" campaign against him.

"The reason I criticised them is I thought their actions put the lives of my members at risk. And I still believe that," he said.

"I criticised them and I moved on. But they have been waging this relentless campaign ... that is directly aimed, at, I think, whacking me because I dared to have a go at them."

At a media doorstop later, Mr Overland ignored questions from a journalist from The Australian, repeatedly asking for the next question.