A former Australian prime minister is on a list of "alleged paedophiles" that Liberal senator Bill Heffernan claims forms part of a police document.

Senator Heffernan used a Senate estimates committee hearing on Tuesday to discuss the list of 28 people, which he said formed part of police documents that had been "signed off" by Gary Crooke, QC, the former senior counsel assisting NSW's Wood royal commission into police corruption in the 1990s. Mr Crooke declined to comment when contacted by Fairfax Media on Tuesday.

Many of the people on the list and otherwise named in the documents were "prominent", including a former prime minister, Senator Heffernan said: "They were delivered to me by a police agency some time ago because no one seems to want to deal with them."

Every Commonwealth attorney-general since Philip Ruddock had seen the list, Senator Heffernan said.