THE Federal Government is set to provide taxpayer-funded overseas travel for the shadow foreign affairs minister as a first step towards curbing the widespread use of travel gifts.

The Herald reported on Saturday that one in four federal MPs has accepted free overseas travel in just 16 months since the last election.

The 109 trips paid for by foreign governments, private companies and lobby groups have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Senior government figures are looking at whether new rules and restrictions can be imposed because there is no independent approval process or scrutiny by the Parliament. There is no effective punishment for not declaring a trip.

The Government has been embarrassed by the confession of the Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, that he failed to declare two travel gifts in 2002 and 2005. Neither the Government nor the Coalition can be certain all their MPs have fully disclosed all their sponsored travel.

These travel gifts are on top of the taxpayer-funded around-the-world trip available to every MP and travel by ministers and MPs on official business.

The Government is considering extending the official travel category to provide some funds for the shadow foreign minister to travel overseas. The Opposition Leader and deputy already receive some travel money.

Julie Bishop used the deputy's allowance to travel to the US in January, before she became the foreign affairs spokeswoman. The only sponsored travel she has declared is a five-day trip to Beijing during last year's Olympics, paid for by Channel Seven.

Andrew Robb, who was the Opposition's foreign affairs spokesman last year, accepted three travel gifts. In January and June he visited the US on two nine-day trips as a guest of the Australia-America Leadership Dialogue. In July he went on an eight-day trip to Israel, paid for by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said last year he had found it a problem when he was the opposition spokesman for foreign affairs to be able to take the overseas trips needed to perform his duties. He was attacked by the Coalition for accepting travel in 2006 from a company called Beijing AustChina Technology. Other Labor MPs also accepted travel from this company.