WASHINGTON  The Justice Department’s ethics office is reviewing a decision in 2002 by department officials to send a Canadian citizen to Syria, where he was tortured, American officials said Thursday.

A Justice Department spokesman, Peter A. Carr, said that its inquiry, by the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, was begun in March 2007 and was examining the role of department lawyers in expelling Maher Arar to Syria, which has long been identified by the State Department as habitually using torture on prisoners.

The existence of the Justice inquiry was disclosed at a Congressional hearing on Thursday by Richard L. Skinner, the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. Skinner told two House subcommittees that the Arar case involved “very questionable” actions by United States government officials and that he “could not rule out” that Mr. Arar was sent to Syria with the intention of having him questioned under torture about possible connections to terrorists.