The chairman of the House intelligence commitee, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said Friday that the panel is opening an investigation into whether the CIA has properly notified Congress of significant covert actions.

Reyes' move was triggered by CIA Director Leon Panetta's June 24 disclosure that Congress had not been notified of a major planned counter-terrorism program, later reported to be an agency effort to form elite teams to hunt down and kill top terrorist operatives at close range. The effort never got off the ground, and then-Vice President Dick Cheney told the agency not to tell Congress' intelligence committees of the matter.

The news of the probe could be a further disappointment to President Barack Obama, who has resisted a whole-scale investigation into alleged wrong-doing on the national security front by the Bush administration, fearing it would complicate his domestic and security agenda.

Republicans on Capitol Hll oppose the probe, and accuse Democrats of politicizing the agency.

The American Civil Liberties Union welcomed the investigation. "We know now more than ever that government transparency is essential to a functioning democracy and our government cannot be held accountable if Congress and the American people are left in the dark. Only by vigorously exercising its oversight responsibility can Congress reassert its critical role as an effective check against abuse of executive authority," Michael Macleod-Ball of the ACLU's Washington office said in a statment.