NEW YORK (Bloomberg) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has been asked by a Republican lawmaker to turn over documents related to the decision to rescue insurer American International Group Inc. (AIG).

The Federal Reserve should deliver the records by March 2, according to a letter dated yesterday from Representative Darrell Issa of California, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Bernanke last month invited the Government Accountability Office to conduct a "full review" of the central bank's actions tied to the bailout that swelled to $182.3 billion.

"In light of your professed commitments and your apparent desire to cooperate with this committee's investigation, I am writing to request that you voluntarily produce to this committee all records and communications in the possession of the Federal Reserve" regarding the rescue, Issa wrote.

Mr. Issa is seeking to widen the probe into what he's called a "backdoor bailout" of banks that got funds from AIG after its rescue and efforts by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to withhold details from the public about the payments. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who ran the New York Fed when AIG was bailed out in 2008, testified last month that the payments were necessary and that subordinates made disclosure decisions.

The New York Fed, which turned over about 250,000 pages of documents after the oversight committee issued a subpoena, is "not in full compliance" with the demand, Issa wrote in a separate letter to committee Chairman Edolphus Towns.

The regulator limited material to the period from September 2008, the month of the bailout, to May 2009, Mr. Issa wrote to the New York Democrat.