The FBI has launched an investigation into Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. after a report that employees or associates may have attempted to hack into phone conversations and voice mail of September 11 survivors, victims and their families, a federal law enforcement source told CNN Thursday.

“We are aware of the allegations and are looking into them,” said the source, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the investigation. “We’ll be looking at anyone acting for or on behalf of News Corp., from the top down to janitors,” to gather information and determine whether any laws may have been broken.

Because the investigation just began, it’s too early to say when the first interviews will be conducted, the source said, adding the probe is a “high priority.”

New York Rep. Peter T. King, a Republican, earlier this week asked FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate the possibility that journalists working for Murdoch may have tapped into the phones of 9/11 victims and relatives.

News Corp. said Thursday it had no comment on the FBI investigation or the possibility of congressional hearings.

Concerns appear to be traceable to a story published Wednesday by the Mirror, a British tabloid that includes a section it describes as “gossip gone toxic.”

The newspaper cited “a source” who referred to a former police officer who now works as a private investigator. “The investigator is used by a lot of journalists in America and he recently told me that he was asked to hack into the 9/11 victims’ private phone data,” the source reportedly told the newspaper. The source told the Mirror the request came from News of the World, the newspaper at the center of the phone-hacking scandal in Britain.

“He said that the journalists asked him to access records showing the calls that had been made to and from the mobile phones belonging to the victims and their relatives,” the newspaper said.

“His presumption was that they wanted the information so they could hack into the relevant voice mails, just like has been shown they have done in the UK. The PI said he had to turn the job down. He knew how insensitive such research would be, and how bad it would look.

“The investigator said the journalists seemed particularly interested in getting the phone records belonging to the British victims of the attacks.”

READ MORE: CNN