Chairman Baroness Neuberger of the new investigative body, "Future of Volunteering," said it would look into fears the British government was using volunteers for services that would normally be carried out by the state.

"What we are going to have a look at is exactly what is happening with volunteers at the moment and indeed what the future is to be for volunteering over the next 10 years," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"There are lots of unanswered questions. And some people are very worried that the voluntary sector is being used to carry out a variety of public services, therefore using volunteers and getting public services on the cheap. Other people say a lot of it is additionality.

"I do think that there is a question that politicians are legitimately asking themselves about how can we use volunteering to improve our society?

"The problem about volunteering is, absolutely key in my view, is volunteering is done for free, out of love, out of one's spirit. I think when politicians try to push people to do things in a particular way it probably cuts across part of the spirit of volunteering."

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said people had been looking at the relationship between volunteers and government from "the wrong end of the telescope".

He said most of the care in Britain was carried out by people volunteering their help, such as carers.

"The normal process that takes place is not paid for by the state," he said.

"It is mostly done by people through love and care and because they value their community and the extended family. The voluntary sector is nothing more or less than the extended extended family. It is the extended family to those who don't have family and need help."

He said volunteering was an integral part of the way people lived their lives.

Mr Duncan Smith said government had been moving into areas normally occupied by voluntary groups, often legitimately.

He added: "Without volunteering, frankly, we would not be a society that is cohesive or, even worse, remain a decent balanced society."

A final report, that will be produced in June 2007, will describe the state of volunteering as it is now, and as the Commission thinks, hopes and expects it to be ten years on.

It will make recommendations about policy changes that are needed in order to get that vision to become a reality, and it will also develop practical proposals about how to bring those policy changes about.