Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been named in the Panama Papers. Picture: AFP PHOTO / MARK GRAHAM

It has emerged Mr Turnbull was a former director of a company incorporated by embattled law firm Mossack Fonseca in the 1990s.

Mr Turnbull fronted media on Thursday morning and was asked whether he was happy to be named in the files.

“There is no suggestion of any impropriety whatsoever,” he told reporters.

“There is nothing new there. The company concerned was a wholly owned subsidiary of a public listed Australian company.”

He said he was director of the ASX listed company, along with (former NSW premier) Neville Wran, for about two years.

“The involvement is very, very well known and as the article acknowledges, there’s no suggestion of any impropriety at all.”

He later said that if the company had made any profit, “which it did not”, it would certainly have paid tax in Australia.

“Obviously you haven’t studied the accounts of the company concerned.”

Earlier, a spokesman for Mr Turnbull told Fairfax the Prime Minister was not aware the company had been incorporated by Mossack Fonseca as the registered agent in Road Town, Tortola.

Mr Turnbull was a former director of a British Virgin Islands company administered by Mossack Fonesca.

He joined the board of Star Mining NL with former NSW Premier Neville Wran in 1993, but both resigned two years later.

There is no suggestion Mr Turnbull had acted improperly.

The news comes as Federal Police will today make a court application to access records related to the James Ashby affair in a move that could derail the PM’s campaign.

The Panama Papers are leaked records from Mossack Fonseca which provide a rare insight into the legal practice used to move money to decrease tax burdens.

The link to the PM sparked a call from international corporate watchdog SumofUs for Mr Turnbull to release his tax returns, with the group launching a petition for him to “come clean”.

The news linking Mr Turnbull to the scandal comes just two days after the Panamanian law firm at the centre of the huge trove of leaked documents detailing offshore financial dealings says it will take legal action against an international consortium of journalists.

The Mossack Fonseca firm said in statement that it had asked the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists to stop publishing information from the documents that it has said were obtained through a computer hack.

Earlier this week, the consortium published information about some 200,000 offshore entities in a searchable database.

It said that did not imply all those mentioned violated the law.

The firm says that in addition to being obtained illegally, the data is full of errors.

The consortium has published a number of stories detailing how world leaders, celebrities and businesses use such entities to hide money.