QUEENSLAND'S anti-corruption watchdog has warned that the lessons for police from the Fitzgerald inquiry are being lost.

The Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) on Wednesday released a 142-page report, Dangerous Liaisons, which looks into police officers' payment of money to criminals for information.

Police have the power to offer money for information in certain criminal investigations.

But the CMC report, which came out of an operation codenamed Capri, found some officers - some of whom are facing the courts - had rorted the funds and acted in a way that was "improper, and in some cases... dishonest and unlawful".

"While those officers who were the subject of our investigation made wide use of the powers afforded them under the Act, they largely failed to exercise or even recognise their associated responsibilities," CMC chairman Robert Needham said in the report.

"More generally, they took advantage of the authority derived from their status and standing in the community as police officers."

Mr Needham said the publication of the report, close to the 20th anniversary of the Fitzgerald inquiry being tabled in state parliament, "should serve as a reminder that lessons learned gradually diminish with the passage of time and generational change".

"It is inevitable that as time passes, slippage in the ethical standards of our police will occur," Mr Needham said.

He paid tribute to the "honest officers who refused to be drawn into misconduct, actively warned against it, and did not allow themselves to be manipulated by a criminal".