Shanghai -- The Chinese government said Wednesday that it plans a nationwide audit of locally managed pension funds, amid a widening probe into Shanghai's handling of pension fund investments and land dealings.

Local governments in every province and major metropolis except Shanghai and Tibet received notice of the audits last month, the press office of the National Audit Office said, confirming a report in the newspaper 21st Century Business Herald.

An official who refused to be identified confirmed the report refused to give his name.

The newspaper cited several unnamed provincial officials as expressing surprise over the audits.

It was unclear why Shanghai and Tibet were omitted. But Tibet presumably would have few pension fund dealings due to its resource and farm-based economy.

Shanghai already is in the midst of a top level probe over alleged illicit investments of at least a third of a 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion; euro1 billion) city pension fund in real estate and other infrastructure.

The city's labor chief, a district governor, and several prominent businessmen have lost their jobs and been detained for questioning over alleged "severe violations" of Communist Party rules.

Caijing, a respected financial magazine, reported this week that among those detained is Wu Minglie, the head of a government-linked property company involved in redeveloping part of the city's famed waterfront Bund area.

Wu's company, the New Huangpu Group, signed a deal with Japan's Rockefeller Group to direct the development of the choice property project.

Wu resigned as chairman of the company's publicly traded unit, the Shanghai New Huangpu Real Estate Co., in March 2006, according to a notice on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Web site. It said Wu quit for "reasons of work."

Before founding the New Huangpu Group in 1997, Wu headed Huangpu's Housing Management bureau, according to his corporate biography.

Reports in Caijing and the Shanghai Securities News, a newspaper backed by the stock exchange, said it was unclear if Wu was linked in any way to the pension fund, saying his case might be related to Huangpu District's government-run mandatory housing fund.

The company has not issued any statements or comments about Wu's situation, and calls to the company spokesman's office rang unanswered. City government officials also refused comment.

Meanwhile, the government on Tuesday stepped up controls on land use in a new effort to cool surging investment, threatening to punish local officials who fail to stop improper sales, a state news agency reported.

The new rules warn local leaders "they will be penalized if they fail to stop or investigate illegal land sale cases in areas under their jurisdiction," Xinhua said. It didn't say what penalties violators might face.