The headline "*CORRECT: Inquiry Panel's Angelides: Now 'Pouring Through' Lehman Report," published at 3:06 p.m. EDT, misspelled the word "poring.")

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- The head of a commission set up by Congress to examine the causes of the financial crisis said Monday that investigators are probing how pervasive accounting tricks are on Wall Street similar to what destroyed Lehman Brothers.

Phil Angelides, the former California state treasurer who is leading the 10-member Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, or FCIC, said the panel is "poring through" a 2,200-page report by a court-appointed examiner into Lehman's downfall. He specifically wants to know if an accounting maneuver known as Repo 105, which temporarily removed $50 billion of troubled assets from Lehman's balance sheet, has been used at other major banks.

"It is worth examining if this was unique," Angelides told Dow Jones Newswires. "To what extent were these practices commonplace? What extent did the regulators see them or not see them? What extent were they enabled by attorneys, accountants or others?"

The panel, which has a budget of $8 million to carry on its own examination, has a hard deadline of December to turn over its findings to Congress. Angelides said using the Lehman Brothers report will help the commission expand its probe and get "a better glimpse of how this shadow banking system worked."

Angelides also said the commission has the ability to refer some of its findings to the Justice Department for possible criminal charges. However, he wouldn't say if the panel would make such a recommendation for former Lehman executives.

"We do have the ability to refer matters to Justice, but having said that, our goal is to find the facts and let them fall where they are," he said. "We're in the process of our own reviewing process into Lehman Brothers."

The investment bank collapsed in 2008 under the weight of risky securities and a literal run on the bank. Lehman's bankruptcy filing, the largest in U.S. history, triggered a wave of fear across the financial markets and caused the government to intervene with a massive bailout of the banking industry.

Federal prosecutors launched a $30 million investigation into what triggered Lehman's downfall, of which the report was unsealed on Thursday. The report raised questions about whether top executives manipulated the balance sheet to temporarily remove $50 billion of troubled assets.

Angelides, who has already brought top bank CEOs before the commission, said he also wants to take a hard look at how much regulators knew about Repo 105s and why accountants signed off on the accounting. He also said FCIC investigators will try to determine if other major banks are using similar tactics to beef up their balance sheets.

"Our investigators are hard at work taking a look at significant institutions and their practices, and then identify the ones that are most troubling in terms of creating the financial crisis," he said. "We'll see if those practices were pervasive."

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