A vicious and violent criminal who's spent most of his life in jail has in a 20-year reign of terror secretly raped and assaulted women every time he's been allowed to leave custody, police allege.

The Age can reveal the 40-year-old man will now face trial over 122 fresh offences allegedly committed against eight women since 1994, including brutal kidnappings and serious assault, which began when he was 16.

The repeat offending and number of victims has been described as exposing "failures within our systems".

The latest charges allege his first victim was repeatedly raped, dragged across barbed wire, imprisoned and had her nose broken with the butt of a shotgun during violent beatings across 1994 and 1995.

She was later held captive in a public toilet block and on another occasion forced into the boot of a car and driven to an unknown location where she was again attacked in offending that continued between 1999 and 2000.