Victoria Police want to keep handling complaints against officers, arguing that getting another agency involved would send the organisation "back to the last century".

Appearing before state parliament's Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission committee on Monday, the force also took a swipe at lawyers "swooping in" and giving lectures on human rights.

Law groups have told the committee they do not have complete confidence in Victoria Police being able to investigate its own workers without a conflict of interest.

"If you had a stand-alone organisation that dealt with all complaints, you'd have to appreciate how much (of) an impact that would have on what presently happens within Victoria Police," Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius said.

"You'd take us back to last century because once again the shutters would go up and line managers right across our organisation will be able to eschew their management responsibility for the conduct of their people because they'll say 'well it's not our job anymore it's this organisation's job over here'."

Mr Cornelius, who is leading an organisational change following a damning Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission report, said change needed to be driven from within the police force.

"It actually is much more effective in terms of driving change for police to own that need to change and police to lead that discussion," he said.

"That's not going to be serviced by having a bunch of carpetbagger lawyers swooping in on our organisation and giving us 101 on ... what the United Nations reckons human rights looks like."

Since complaints became a managerial responsibility, police reporting on other officers had risen from eight per cent under the old regime, to about 20 per cent, he told the committee.

Mr Cornelius admitted there was confusion not just in the community, but even within Victoria Police on what constituted a complaint and the organisation was working with oversight agency, IBAC, to find a clear definition.

He also admitted Victoria Police could improve its transparency concerning how complaint investigation outcomes were made.