The Rugby Football Union has drafted in a former Scotland Yard detective to launch an urgent inquiry into the leak of three supposedly confidential reports into England's disastrous World Cup. The reports graphically illustrate how the campaign in New Zealand was undermined from within and contain a series of explosive revelations.

Allegations that some players were more motivated by money and having a good time than performing for their country, together with criticism of the coaching staff and the absence of any direction from the governing body for the beleaguered team manager, Martin Johnson, who resigned last week, left the union not so much on the back foot as flat on its back on Wednesday.

However, one of Johnson's coaching team last night insisted that they were part of a "political battle going on at Twickenham". He added: "It's become very personal and it's a great shame. It's just a complete political shit-fight. For people to try and paint a picture that we are unprofessional, disorganised or incompetent is grossly unfair. To cobble together a few players' comments to give that impression … I don't think that is right.

"The perception is that England is a shambles. Well, not really. We had a poor World Cup but the 2011 season was moderately successful. We won 10 out of 13 internationals. Only New Zealand won more games in that period than we did."

The leak has caused fury at Twickenham and the RFU's chief disciplinary officer, Jeff Blackett, is arranging for a former detective to head an independent inquiry to identify the person responsible and also establish a motive. "It is very disappointing that such sensitive information, based on a number of statements by individuals who were promised confidentiality, have been leaked," he said.

"It is outrageous that individuals find themselves disparaged without the right of reply and this is damaging to the RFU as an organisation. When the report is produced, and I would imagine the time frame will be two weeks, we will take the necessary action."

Outrageous was the word used by Damien Hopley, the chief executive of the Rugby Players' Association (RPA), who sits on the Professional Game Board, the body which is reviewing the World Cup campaign and which received the three reports. It will report to the RFU's board of directors on 30 November and make a number of recommendations, including who should succeed Johnson.

"I am devastated that our members' trust has been so publicly betrayed," Hopley said. "Many comments were understandably robust because they knew England had not performed as they could have and the players are committed to getting things right for the future. Our players were assured that their feedback would be totally confidential and yet no sooner has the report been sent to the board members than it appears in a national newspaper. If we are serious about destroying the porous culture in our game, then we need to introduce tougher security measures to weed out these self‑serving people once and for all."

The search for the culprit will not derail the review process or undermine the responses of those interviewed. Mark McCafferty, the chief executive of Premiership Rugby who is also a member of the Professional Game Board, said the whole of the professional game had to bear responsibility for the fall of England from World Cup winners in 2003 to laughing stock eight years later.

"It is disappointing that reports have been leaked to the media," he said. "The review process will continue and recommendations will be made to the RFU board next week. We need to get to an understanding that the kind of approach we have seen cannot continue. Every administrator and player [in the professional game] has to look at their responsibilities. The fact that the Premiership clubs are contributing to the review process says straight away that we feel it is a problem we have all got to solve."

The two most dysfunctional major sides in the World Cup were England and France, the only two leading nations who operate a club-based system. Most of their rivals have central contracts meaning they directly employ players who pay dearly for serious breaches of discipline.

"I am not sure that the club background is an issue," said McCafferty. "We have all got to be responsible for our own behaviour, including whoever leaked the reports to the media. Everyone, players and administrators, is accountable."

There are little more than two months before the start of the Six Nations Championship and not only are England lacking a head coach or a management team, but the RFU is also so fragmented and leaderless that it will take a hard sell to convince anyone of stature that he would have the optimum chance to succeed.

"A lot has been said about what happened with England on and off the field in the World Cup, but the question is whether they will learn from it," said Joe Lydon, part of England's management team that was sacked after the 2006 Six Nations, who is now the Welsh Rugby Union's head of rugby.

"I hope they do not get rid of the entire management team that went to New Zealand because you only learn from experience. If you bring in all new coaches, they are going to have to find out what their predecessors already knew, good and bad.

"England have huge resources but that almost seems to be working against them. We have far fewer in Wales and that means we have to work extremely hard. I cannot say I feel sorry for Martin Johnson: I have the utmost respect for him as a player and as a person and it was a case, as he has said, of the system letting itself down. England have to rebuild quickly. They have the players and there are English coaches capable of taking over from Johnson, but they have to make sure that there is more responsibility and accountability going forward."

While England's captain at the World Cup, Lewis Moody, responded to criticism of him by unnamed colleagues in New Zealand with a vigorous rebuttal of allegations, the full-back Ben Foden said that everyone involved in the abortive campaign had to accept responsibility for the dismal way it played out. "People want to point fingers, but there were 50 of us on the tour," said Foden. "It's all very well to point at the next guy and blame him but we have to take responsibility. The image of rugby players has definitely taken a hit. That's the way the game is going now. It has gone professional and people are more in the limelight. We have to be careful but I hope it will be a lesson learned. You've got to do your talking on the field and if we'd won the World Cup no one would be complaining about all these things that happened."

The sports minister Hugh Robertson, has demanded that the RFU improves its governance at a time when it does not have a chief executive and at the end of a year of mass sackings and resignations that has left it reeling. "Anyone who cares about rugby can only be dismayed by what has happened at Twickenham and in the World Cup," he said. "The RFU must use this as an opportunity to reform the way rugby is run in this country and they must put in place a high-performance system that will ensure we have the best possible opportunity of winning the 2015 World Cup. A problem with sporting governing structures in this country is that they are stuck in a previous era and in rugby's case I do not think it has fully made the transition from the amateur to the professional era."

Robertson wants the RFU to accept in full a report on governance by the legal firm Slaughter and May, which will be considered by the RFU's council next week. As any changes would need a two-thirds majority at the union's annual general meeting, the most radical recommendations, involving slimming down the council and giving executives more clout, will probably be rejected, leaving Robertson to decide whether to threaten to withdraw government financial support for the 2015 World Cup, which England is hosting.