The growing lack of transparency in the global oil market is a "troubling trend" that could be contributing to price volatility, a top U.S. commodities regulator will tell an audience Friday.

Scott O'Malia, one of two Republican commissioners at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, raised concerns about a lack of oil data from developing countries like China and Russia during an energy summit being hosted in Tokyo by the International Energy Agency.

"It's imperative that oil markets have accurate and timely data regarding tightening in market conditions if we hope to avoid the future price spikes that will undermine our economic growth," O'Malia said in prepared remarks slated to be delivered Friday afternoon.

The IEA publishes monthly oil production-and-demand figures, but some data out of Saudi Arabia and other large producers, as well as China , the second-biggest oil consumer after the U.S. , is considered suspect by many market participants. The U.S. is one of the few countries to publish public, weekly data on oil demand.

"Publishing data regarding oil in-transit will reduce the uncertainty of what is being stored at sea--or withheld from the market," O'Malia said. "With the shift in oil demand, nations must be committed to expand International Energy Agency membership or create another data collection entity that has the confidence of developing nations."

The CFTC doesn't have authority to police physical markets and it's not the agency in charge of releasing supply-and-demand data, but the CFTC can get involved in situations where manipulation in a physical market may have an adverse impact on the futures markets.

The agency is currently in the process of determining if it should impose new trading limits on energy speculators who bet on the direction of futures market prices. The move follows accusations of lax oversight by the CFTC over commodities markets in 2008. Critics blamed speculators, including banks and institutional investors like pension funds, for record-high oil prices that year and accused the CFTC of sitting idle while consumers were being gouged at the pump.

O'Malia didn't discuss his views on the CFTC's own current efforts to impose greater regulations on the energy market through stricter speculative position limits, although in the past he has questioned their effectiveness and suggested they could cause traders to migrate into less regulated over-the-counter markets.

CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler has been asking Congress to expand the agency's authority over the over-the-counter markets as part of the broader financial overhaul.

A version of the legislation which would give the CFTC the power to impose position limits on swaps passed the U.S. House last year, and the Senate is gearing up to unveil its own version of a financial bill soon.

O'Malia expressed support for some aspects of the U.S. House bill including provisions that would beef up risk-management rules and require swaps dealers and major traders to route swaps through clearinghouses, which guarantee trades.

He warned, however, that any new rules for derivatives should be consistent across markets.

"It is critical that this legislation doesn't open new opportunities for regulatory arbitrage," he said. "It's essential that the new regulatory authority creates a consistent and seamless regulatory structure over the $600 trillion global over-the-counter market."

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