A spokeswoman for the regulator, said: "We're looking into the programme and in particular the relationship between the sponsor and the broadcaster."
'Beat: Life on the Street' follows the work of Police Community Support Officers and was conceived by the Home Office's media agency Manning Gottlieb OMD in 2005.
The Home Office paid £800,000 to fund two six-part series of half-hour programmes, made by Twofour Broadcast and shown on ITV in 2006 and 2007.
Ofcom and ITV declined to comment on the specifics of the investigation.
The broadcasting code requires that a sponsor "must not influence the content and/or scheduling of a channel or programme in such a way as to impair the responsibility and editorial independence of the broadcaster".
The investigation was splashed on the front page of The Sunday Telegraph, which seized on the angle that taxpayers' money was being used to fund documentaries to show government initiatives in a favourable light.
According to the Sunday Telegraph the Government has spent almost £2m on at least eight television series or individual programmes in the past five years.
These include a National Blood Service-sponsored programme encouraging ethnic minorities to donate blood and a Ministry of Defence-sponsored documentary about a British Army team's ascent of Everest.
There was recent controversy over public funding for a TV programme in September last year, when adult learning provider .
Learndirect's owner Ufi and the government's marketing communications department COI made the decision after a judge condemned the show as a "human form of bear-baiting" in a court case involving an assault during filming.
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