The Federal Government will investigate events at its detention centre on Manus Island, which left one asylum seeker dead and dozens wounded.

It has also signalled an inquiry into a leak on the Immigration Department website, which exposed the full details of over ten thousand asylum seekers in Australian care. 

Injuries range from minor to critical in the fallout from an apparent riot at the government facility on a Papua New Guinean island, with conflicting reports as to who instigated the furore.

Events remain unclear - some asylum seekers have reported they were attacked by angry locals, while news outlets say is was the transferees themselves who initiated the violent conflict.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said he had placed 100 security officers on standby as a result, and that 130 extra staff were deployed to Manus Island earlier this month.

The events will be reviewed by the Australian Immigration Department in a probe run by department secretary Martin Bowles.

Senior Australian Government officials have reportedly been sent to PNG to gather evidence for the inquiry.

The Immigration Minister appeared twice in one day to give out fragments of information on the incident, saying that it would not bring about any changes to the Government’s policy.

“We will review any further transfers in the short term, but anyone who is on Christmas Island knows that they'll either be transferred to Nauru or Manus, because that's what's been occurring,” Morrison said.

Mr Morrison confirmed that shot were fired during the events, but did not indicate at whom.

A PNG-based correspondent for the ABC claims he has spoken to witnesses who told him responsibility for the escalated violence rested with security contractor G4S and PNG mobile squad police.

Refugee Council of Australia head Paul Power says conditions made protests inevitable, and that the site is being run with zero transparency or accountability.

“Everyone who is there is either being detained at the behest of the Australian Government or being paid by the Australian Government as a contractor of some sort...so there is no independent oversight of what's going on,” Mr Power said.

“Both major parties are at fault.”

“This is a continuation of the policies implemented by the Labor Party in government when they had full knowledge of what would occur, and it continues to be implemented in a more harsh way by the Liberal-National Coalition,” he said

“The expert panel on asylum seekers when they recommended that this centre be established, not only did they recommend that the centre be an open processing centre for asylum claims - which it isn't - but they also recommended that there be forms of independent oversight and that hasn't happened at all.”

Meanwhile, the Immigration Department has confirmed it accidentally published a full list of asylum seekers' personal details on its website.

Reports say the leak included the full names, nationalities, location in Australia, arrival date and boat information of every single asylum seeker in a mainland detention facility, on Christmas Island, or in a community detention program.

They number around ten thousand people in all, including a large number of children.

News organisation Guardian Australia says it has gained access to the list, but is treating the information carefully as it could put some asylum seekers at risk.

“This information was never intended to be in the public domain,” an Immigration Department statement reads.

“The department acknowledges that the file was vulnerable to unauthorised access.”

“The file has been removed and the department is investigating how this occurred to ensure that it does not happen again.”

Questions have been raised over penalties for the potentially life-threatening leak, given the Australian government’s information privacy protocols state records must be protected; “by such security safeguards as it is reasonable in the circumstances to take, against loss, against unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure”.