The public accounts committee wants Balfour Beatty, Jarvis and John Laing to publish the profit made from the refinancing of PFI projects

Balfour Beatty, Jarvis and John Laing could be compelled to reveal the profit they have made from the refinancing of PFI deals by the public accounts committee after failing to disclose the information to the National Audit Office.

The three contractors, along with investment bank Barclays Capital, have so far not revealed the rate of return on some of their projects despite repeated requests from the NAO, reports the Financial Times.

In April a NAO report showed that returns on some projects rose as much as four-fold on refinancing.

Sir John Bourn, head of the NAO, told the committee that "repeated requests" for the information had been "ignored".

Edward Leigh, chairman of the committee, told the FT: "We are considering the possibility of calling them before us unless we get the information that we have asked for, or a good explanation of why it is not available."

In response to the article Balfour Beatty said it had not provided the information because of commercial confidence but would now do so if asked.

Adrian Ewer, John Laing chief executive, told the FT: "We cannot find any information requests to which we did not respond. We are at a bit of a loss on this."