Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is named as a former director of an offshore company used to exploit a Siberian gold mine, data from the Panama Papers reportedly shows.

The Australian Financial Review reports that on October 29 1993 Turnbull and former NSW Premier Neville Wran were on the board of Star Mining NL and its subsidiary in the British Virgin Islands, Star Technology Service.

Within five weeks, on December 3 1993, Turnbull and Wran were appointed directors of Star Mining's subsidiary, which was hoped to develop a $20 billion Siberian gold mine called Sukhoi Log.







The Australian listed company was incorporated and administered by law firm Mossack Fonseca in 1991 under the name Green Applied System and was changed to

A spokesman for Mr Turnbull told the paper that the prime minister didn't know the company was administered by Mossack Fonseca.

There is no suggestion he acted improperly while a director, the paper reports.

'In the public interest'

On Wednesday the Panama Papers database was made publicly available and revealed 118 secret offshore companies with links to Australia when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) put a searchable database up online.

The ICIJ said it is publishing some of the information catalogued in a database "in the public interest," as a global movement against tax evasion and the secrecy accorded the beneficial owners of anonymous shell companies gains force.

The database "allows users to explore the networks of companies and people that used -- and sometimes abused -- the secrecy of offshore locales with the help of Mossack Fonseca and other intermediaries," the ICIJ said.

Photo: AAP

It said it was not making available raw records online, nor was it putting all the information from the records out, in part to prevent access to bank account details and personal data of those mentioned.

The database can be searched by individual and company name and address, and shows links between those in the database.

But it gives no information -- beyond their name -- on the full identities of those behind the companies, nor of the underlying assets linked to the accounts.

And often the names of companies are linked to other similarly anonymous companies.