Japan's education and culture ministry has drawn up draft criteria to ask questions to religious corporations -- a right stipulated by law but which has never been used.

The ministry has been working on the draft to launch an investigation into the religious group previously known as the Unification Church.

The group is accused of soliciting large donations from followers and conducting dubious marketing practices known as spiritual sales.

The ministry is making arrangements to include repeated violations of the law and acts that result in grave damage as practices that "significantly undermine public welfare."

Discussions at the ministry have been focused on creating a definition of practices that would justify issuing a court order for a religious corporation to disband.

The ministry plans to exclude accidental or one-time breaches of the law.

The ministry also intends to exercise the right to ask questions to religious corporations based on objective evidence.

The ministry will present the draft to an expert panel on Tuesday before formalizing the criteria.

After that, ministry officials will draw up a list of questions and launch an investigation into the former Unification Church by the end of the year.

If the probe finds evidence that the group's practices significantly undermine public welfare, the ministry will consider asking a court to issue an order to disband the group.