THE Church of Scientology is a "criminal organisation" hiding behind religion, the Senate was told last night.

Independent senator Nick Xenophon tabled explosive letters from former Scientology officials and staff alleging a litany of abuses, including coerced abortions, assault, imprisonment, covering up sexual abuse, embezzlement of church funds and blackmail.

Senator Xenophon, who said he had referred the allegations to police, demanded a Senate inquiry into the church. And he questioned the tax-exempt status given to the church, which he said "turns supporters into victims in its pursuit of power and wealth".

"In my view, this is a two-faced organisation," he told the Senate.

"There is the public face of an organisation . . . that claims to offer guidance and support to its followers and there is the private face of an organisation that abuses its followers and viciously targets its critics, and seems largely driven by paranoia.

"Scientology is not a religious organisation; it is a criminal organisation that hides behind its so-called religious belief."

Senator Xenophon tabled a letter from Perth man Aaron Saxton, in which he admits to torture and blackmail while working for the Church of Scientology in Australia and at its American headquarters between 1989 and 1996.

Mr Saxton says he assisted in the "forced confinement and torture" of a female church member who was kept under "house arrest" on a farm in western NSW for a month.

"Several abortions were ordered as well," his letter states.

"The staff that got pregnant were taken into offices and put under duress." His letter says the victims were "always in fear" because they were told they could be expelled from the church and "severed" from their family.

"We had one staff member who used a coat hanger and self-aborted her child . . . all her files were destroyed."

Senator Xenophon also tabled a letter from a former executive director of the Sydney branch of the church, Carmel Underwood, in which she alleges a child abuse cover-up. In the mid-1980s, the letter states, a trainee Scientologist counsellor had been molesting his stepdaughter, but church officials "coached" the girl to lie about it to the NSW Department of Community Services.

Another former Scientologist, Sydney man Dean Detheridge, who spent 17 years on church staff, stated that parishioners' counselling sessions were "culled for embarrassing revelations and confessions" to be used against them if they criticised the church.

He also wrote that he had witnessed and participated in "concerted efforts to extract as much money as possible from parishioners with absolutely no regard for the financial security of the individual or his or her family".

The Church of Scientology released a statement last night accusing Senator Xenophon of an "outrageous" abuse of parliamentary privilege.

"Senator Xenophon is obviously being pressured by disgruntled former members who use hate speech and distorted accounts of their experiences in the church," the statement read.

"They are about as reliable as former spouses are when talking about their ex-partner."

The church described the former members' statements as constituting a "propaganda campaign that would suit a totalitarian regime, not Australia, a country that recognises freedom of religion".

The church's statement did not respond to any of the specific allegations made against it.