BERLIN, May 15 (Xinhua) -- German politicians from nearly all fractions called on Sunday for thorough investigation after Der Spiegel, Germany's famed weekly, admitted some of its staff have been working for Germany's foreign intelligence-gathering agency, the BND.

    The BND has clearly worked beyond its power limit, and it should not happen in a democratic country like Germany, the daily Berliner Zeitung reported on Monday, quoting Wolfgang Bosbach, the acting chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

    The Spiegel has admitted that the BND had kept several journalists under surveillance for some years in order to find out the source of leaks from the BND to the press.

    It added that one of its staff member in a regional bureau had been working for the BND as late as last autumn.

    It is also reported that a journalist of Der Spiegel was hired by the BND to spy on a another journalist working for Focus, Der Spiegel's rival weekly magazine.

    The BND has in effect admitted to committing "mistakes," seemingly having confirmed indirectly that it had been spying on German journalists, according to German radio Deutsch Welle.

    Germany's former Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said the scale of the scandal can't be measured at the moment. The investigation must involve not only the BND but also the chancellor office, she said.

    The opposition parties, including the Greens and the Left Party, also demanded formal probe into the issue.

    Der Spiegel, founded in 1947, is widely considered as a watchdog of press and democratic freedoms in postwar Germany. Enditem