A state House and Senate committee investigating the state Bureau of Conveyances will wait until next Wednesday to decide how to resolve questions about the impartiality of its lead investigator.

Dan Mollway, executive director of the state Ethics Commission, has told the committee he cannot comply with a subpoena to turn over its work on the bureau tomorrow because he believes it was tainted by bias.

Hilton Lui, a private investigator, conducted the work on the bureau for the Ethics Commission and has since been hired by the committee as an investigator. Mollway claims Lui was biased against Peter Young, the former director of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, which oversees the bureau.

Committee leaders have said they want to talk to Lui, who is traveling, before making a decision. One Republican on the committee, state Rep. Cynthia Thielen, R-50th (Kailua, Kane'ohe Bay), has called for Lui's removal and other lawmakers have said privately it could be difficult for him to continue given Mollway's accusations.

"Mr. Lui is traveling outside the country, so we will wait for him to return and give him a chance to present his side of the story," state Sen. Jill Tokuda, D-24th (Kailua, Kane'ohe), the co-chair of the committee, said yesterday in a statement. "This is a matter of basic fairness."

The committee meets tomorrow afternoon at the state Capitol and again next Wednesday.

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com.