OTTAWA -- Senior government officials went into panic mode last fall after 46 top-secret cabinet documents went missing.

Documents obtained by Sun Media under access to information legislation reveal a scramble to hunt down the scores of sensitive, classified documents in what a lawyer for the Privy Council Office clerk called a "very serious situation."

PCO spokesman Hali Gernon said a thorough internal investigation was conducted by security and some of the documents were later retrieved. The rest are believed to have been shredded in an "administrative error," but Gernon said there's no indication the information was disclosed or the accessed by unauthorized persons.

While one of the pages released under the access to information request made reference to "sponsorship" and another to the "Inquiry," the PCO refused to divulge the subject of the documents.

POLICY FIX CLAIMED

Strict policies are in place to secure cabinet information, but Gernon said tighter control procedures were implemented "immediately" after the incident to better track sensitive documents.

It was revealed that desks and drawers of employees were turned upside down to find the missing government papers. A flurry of desperate e-mails were exchanged during the hunt for the AWOL documents, and each employee was required to complete an "attestation certificate" that queried their access, sharing, search and destruction of cabinet documents.

One sternly-worded memo from Yves Cote, counsel to the Clerk of the Privy Council, cast a wide net to retain control of the missing documents. "We are talking about a fair number of documents and in my opinion, this is a very serious situation," he said.

The information access documents also show four justice department laptop computers were stolen in Toronto in 2003, including one that contained secret government information about international arbitration on a trade issue.