But following months of improving ratings for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the committee has offered opposition conservatives a forum for a sustained attack on one of his most important ministers a year ahead of federal elections in 2006.
Fischer, the figurehead of the Green party, Schroeder's coalition partners, has admitted "political responsibility" for the visa affair, which has already forced a former junior minister to resign as the party's foreign policy spokesman.
The cross-party committee will investigate why embassies were told to relax restrictions on visa applicants and how soon Fischer was aware of reports that mafia-like gangs were organising mass visa applications at the German embassy in Kiev.
With an election in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein on Sunday, any damage to the government could show up very soon, although it may be too early to say if the affair has gathered enough momentum to outweigh the pressing local issues of jobs and education.
"My guess would be that this affair won't have much of an effect in Schleswig-Holstein," said Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at Berlin's Free University. "But for North Rhine Westphalia, we just don't know what might come out yet."
The affair has been bubbling away for weeks amid conflicting reports of who knew what and when, and growing criticism of the Greens, who run the foreign ministry.