On Tuesday U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will be questioned over his handling of the program and how he plans his plans to remove problem assets from bank balance sheets.

The Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said Geithner will testify at 10 a.m. EDT on Tuesday. It did not announce any other witnesses for the hearing on Capitol Hill.

The panel's will be chaired by Harvard Law School professor, Elizabeth Warren, who has been critical of the Treasury for receiving too little value for its investments in banks from the $700 billion bailout fund and for a lack of transparency in the development and execution its bailout programs.

Warren last month told the Senate Finance Committee that she had substantial questions about a new consumer lending program that the Treasury has launched with the Federal Reserve and a plan to create public-private investment funds to buy toxic assets from banks.

According to a report issued last week, the TARP could well get the United States through the economic crisis but will not likely be enough if the downturn is worse than expected or if some crucial Treasury assumptions about toxic assets prove incorrect.

The key will be whether toxic asset prices reflect fundamental values that are just a fraction of their previous worth, or whether they are artificially depressed by frozen markets. The Treasury hopes that by jump-starting the market for these mortgages and related securities with government subsidies, liquidity will return and asset prices will rebound.

The 151-page report said, If its assumptions are correct, Treasury's current approach may prove a reasonable response to the current crisis.

Should there be a lasting slump in the value of the assets; tactics would have to be modified.

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