The National Intelligence Service has requested prosecution investigations into allegations that the spy agency illegally collected personal information on an illegitimate son of a former prosecutor general and bribed the current president of public broadcaster KBS.

The request for two separate investigations is in line with recommendations that a reform committee of the NIS has made following its own investigations into a series of irregularities involving the intelligence agency, such as interference in domestic politics.

An NIS official has already been convicted of charges of illegally collecting information on a boy that Prosecutor General Chae Dong-wook fathered through an extramarital affair, a case that led to Chae's disgraceful exit from the prosecution in 2013.

Speculation has it that the government of then-President Park Geun-hye leaked the information to the media in an attempt to kick him out of office as he was stepping up an investigation into allegations that the NIS used Internet comments to sway public opinion in favor of Park ahead of the 2012 presidential election.

The NIS reform committee has said that it has confirmed through its own investigation that there are other accomplices in the case, and recommended that the agency request a prosecution investigation of those accomplices.

The committee has also recommended an investigation of KBS President Ko Dae-young, saying it has confirmed that Ko, then the managing editor of the broadcaster, accepted 2 million won ($1,786) from the NIS in exchange for agreeing not to report the NIS' alleged intervention in a prosecution investigation.

But Ko has flatly rejected the allegations as groundless. KBS has also filed a lawsuit seeking damages from the NIS director and the reform committee's chief.

Prosecutors plan to review investigation records the NIS has handed over to the prosecution and launch investigations, officials said. (Yonhap)