The committee has a one-year mandate which expires on 8 June 2017. The mandate can be prolonged twice by three months.

In the opening evidence session in Brussels, the 65-member panel heard from journalists at some of the media organisations that broke the story in April.

Gerard Ryle, director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) which co-ordinated the release of some 11m files from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca said: ‘What we did expose was essentially the biggest cache of inside information into the offshore system that anyone had ever seen.  And now what we’re seeing is civil society reacting to our findings and this parliamentary hearing is one of those reactions. We very much welcome it.’

Ana Gomes, S&D MEP and vice-chair of the PANA inquiry said that while MEPs were aware that tax avoidance ‘is huge, we knew it, but claimed ‘the Panama Papers led us to another level’, by revealing that the anonymity of individuals indulging in tax avoidance was guaranteed.

The protection of whistleblowers was also raised at the hearing. European Greens have launched a new initiative in this area timed to coincide with the first meeting of PANA.

UK representative Molly Scott Cato MEP, a member of the PANA committee, is one of 12 Members of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament who is backing calls to provide a secure online platform to enable whistleblowers to work securely in the public interest on issues such as tax justice.

Scott Cato said: ‘The Panama Papers offer a perfect example of how vital the role of whistle-blowers can be, and the revelations of the more recent Bahamas Leaks show there’s still much more to be uncovered.

‘British overseas territories and other ex-colonial territories were at the heart of the Panama papers and it is paramount that Britain’s tax arrangements continue to be properly scrutinized. We must ensure that Brexit is not allowed to enable the UK to become the biggest tax haven in the world.’