The Territory and Municipal Services Minister moved a motion calling for an investigation into more restrictive policies for police chases in the ACT, saying an average of 18 people were killed in them each year in Australia.

Mr Rattenbury said seven people died in accidents related to police pursuits in the ACT between 2004 and 2010.

He sought an investigation into recent pursuits from Australia and overseas, with experts and public opinion to help form recommendations for the ACT government.

"There have been many other crashes and injuries,” Mr Rattenbury said, calling for police officers to be limited to pursuits when a serious crime had been committed.

“Police pursuit policy is a vexed area,” Mr Rattenbury said.

“The police have an important role in enforcing the criminal law. But at the same time police pursuits create a risk to those involved and the wider community as they often lead to dangerous and high-speed driving.”

Analysis by the Australian Institute of Criminology of data from 2000-2011 shows 110 of the 218 deaths were of alleged offenders driving while pursued by police vehicles.

A further 26 deaths were of passengers in the same vehicles, while six deaths were of police officers engaged in pursuits.

"The most prevalent type of offence committed prior to a fatal pursuit is traffic-related – that is an offence such as speeding, dangerous driving, or registration and roadworthy offences," Mr Rattenbury said.

He called for the ACT to consider following Australian jurisdictions including Tasmania and South Australia whose police pursuit policies had been reviewed and refined.

Mr Rattenbury praised authorities in Queensland for a 2009 review by the state's coroner. It refocused policy on safety and discouraged officers from pursuing vehicles for minor traffic and drink-driving offences.

"This resulted in a revised, more restrictive police pursuits policy, adopted in late 2011," he said.

Opposition leader Jeremy Hanson was unmoved by the speech.

"Shane Rattenbury, as a Green, is trying to pursue a policy whereby he would hamstring the police so that people could get drunk, take drugs, steal cars then drive past police, wave at them and there would be no consequences," he said.

"The police would be powerless to chase them and I think that the consequence of that is what we would see across this town is an increase in those sort of crimes."

Mr Hanson said drivers who ran red lights in the ACT would not be pursued by police under the proposed standards.

Police and Emergency Services Minister Simon Corbell told the Assembly the appropriateness of pursuits initiated by police had already received sufficient scrutiny in the ACT.

He said ACT Policing officers were required to follow strict guidelines related to pursuits.

"The government supports police being able to determine when they need to pursue," Mr Corbell said.