Nick Kaldas, a senior officer vying to become the state's next police commissioner, is set to give explosive evidence to an inquiry into a bugging operation run a decade ago by his rival, fellow deputy Catherine Burn and overseen by current commissioner Andrew Scipione.

Mr Kaldas will front a parliamentary inquiry on Friday morning to elaborate on his startling written submission which claims the police internal affairs unit that ran the bugging operation engaged in "massive wrong doing and habitual illegal acts".

He says illegality associated with the bugging of allegedly corrupt police, codenamed Operation Mascot, was "sanctioned and covered up" by the Police Integrity Commission and NSW Crime Commission.

Operation Mascot was run during 1999-2001 by the NSW Special Crime and Internal Affairs unit probing alleged corruption and Mr Kaldas became one of its targets.

Ms Burn, who is due to give evidence within hours of Mr Kaldas on Friday, was the operation's team leader. Mr Scipione become SCIA commander in 2001.

In his submission Mr Kaldas says "a level of intense electronic and other surveillance [was] ... carried out on every part of my life, home and work, including my ex-wife and children".

The surveillance "was clearly unjustified but in the end yielded not one allegation to be put to me at the end of the operation".

Mr Kaldas notes at the time he was "involved in well-documented disputes with senior officers of the SCIA including commander Mal Brammer and Detective Sergeant John Dolan".

But in what appears to be move to pre-empt allegations against her, Ms Burn has strongly denied any wrongdoing in her submission to the inquiry published last week.

In particular, Ms Burn denies that while team leader of Operation Mascot, she directed internal affairs police "to use illegal warrants to secretly record conversations of my rivals in the police force", in particular Mr Kaldas, when she did not suspect him of wrongdoing.

Ms Burn has also denied directing use of illegal warrants to bug Mr Kaldas "as part of a personal vendetta".

Mr Scipione has declined to comment and is due to give evidence on Wednesday.

The parliamentary inquiry is examining the conduct and progress of a two-year probe by NSW Ombudsman Bruce Barbour into an internal police investigation launched into Operation Mascot in 2003.

The investigation, Strike Force Emblems, was launched in response to revelations that warrants issued by Supreme Court judges authorising the bugging for Operation Mascot included the name of a journalist and police never accused of wrongdoing.

Successive NSW governments have refused to officially release the report of Strike Force Emblems, although extensive details have been previously revealed by Fairfax Media.

The inquiry into Mr Barbour's investigation was prompted by concerns, including some NSW MPs, about the time taken and whether it had begun to focus on who had leaked documents relating to Mascot and Emblems.

During the inquiry's first public hearing on Thursday a former police detective whose name appeared on a bugging warrant, Brian Harding, took aim at Mr Barbour's inquiry, for which he had been interviewed.

"It would appear that the wrongdoers – those that obtained the original warrants – have been successful in having the Ombudsman respond to their complaints to shift the focus of the investigation into an inquiry into myself, other complainants and the whistleblower or whistleblowers," he said.

Mr Barbour is due to give evidence next week.

The inquiry also heard from veteran police reporter Steve Barrett whose name appeared on a warrant. He said the only explanation he had was that he knew a lot of the police whose names were on the warrants.

"If something leaks, they might tell Steve Barrett," he said. "That is the only justification as to why I would be put on there".