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BBC political editor Nick Robinson with background to news about the 'Plebgate' claims
The police watchdog has questioned the "honesty and integrity" of Police Federation officers who met Andrew Mitchell over the plebgate row.
The IPCC said that there should be a panel to determine whether the three gave a false account of that meeting with the former chief whip.
But the panel cannot be held because the MP has not made a complaint.
Mr Mitchell quit the cabinet after Downing Street police officers said he called them plebs, which he denies.
Eight people, including four police officers, have been arrested and bailed over the September 2012 row at the security gates to Downing Street. The Crown Prosecution Service is currently considering charges.
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Police Federation's Ken Mackaill said after the October 2012 meeting Mr Mitchell had to resign
As the row between the then cabinet minister and the police intensified after the original allegation, Mr Mitchell met with Police Federation officers from the West Mercia, West Midlands and Warwickshire forces at his constituency office.
Deborah Glass, deputy chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, said the evidence indicated that the two sides had different agendas.
She said: "The allegation against the officers is that they deliberately misrepresented what Mr Mitchell had said during a meeting in his constituency office on 12 October 2012 when they gave media interviews immediately afterwards."
The IPCC said that during that meeting, representatives from the three forces acknowledged that the integrity of their Metropolitan Police colleagues was no longer intact.
A transcript of the meeting shows the representatives stating that the London officers had "put words in your mouth that are untrue".
End Quote Deborah Glass, IPCCI believe it is important to put my disagreement on record, and to set out the evidence so that the public can judge for themselves"
But Ms Glass said: "Despite their apparent enthusiasm for reporting their MPS colleague for lying, in fact none of the officers do so, but immediately tell the waiting media, in effect, that it is Mr Mitchell's integrity which is in question."
BBC News and other national media reported the meeting's outcome. One of the officers, Inspector Ken MacKaill of West Mercia Police, said Mr Mitchell had no option but to resign.
West Mercia Police investigated how the officers represented the meeting. It concluded that although the Police Federation had added pressure on Mr Mitchell to resign, none of the officers he met had a case to answer for misconduct or gross misconduct. It said that there was no deliberate intention to lie to journalists.
But the IPCC, which oversaw that investigation, said that it disagreed.
Ms Glass said: "In my view, the evidence is such that a panel should determine whether the three officers gave a false account of the meeting in a deliberate attempt to support their MPS colleague and discredit Mr Mitchell, in pursuit of a wider agenda."
"In my opinion the evidence indicates an issue of honesty and integrity, not merely naïve or poor professional judgment."
She said that the Police Federation was running a "successful, high profile, anti-cuts campaign" and the cabinet minister's account "did not fit with their agenda".
"Although Mr Mitchell has made his views about the officers' conduct clear he has chosen not to make a formal complaint, therefore the power to direct misconduct proceedings is not open to me in this case.
"But bearing in mind the role of the IPCC in supervising this investigation and the public interest, I believe it is important to put my disagreement on record, and to set out the evidence so that the public can judge for themselves."
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