Jakarta – Police fired tear gas after hundreds of protesters pelted them with stones on Tuesday outside Indonesia's parliament as a demonstration over a controversial bank bail-out turned violent.

The stick-wielding protesters burned flags of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party and hurled stones and bottled water at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowd.

Demonstrators hung banners outside parliament declaring "Arrest Century Thieves" and "Change the Regime, Change the System without SBY", referring to the president by his initials.

"We demand that the Bank Century scandal be ended... the scandal that has destroyed this country, the scandal that has caused 6.7 trillion rupiah to vanish," a student protester shouted.

The 724-million-dollar bail-out, authorised by the country's top reformers Vice President Boediono and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, was around 10 times larger than initially approved.

Inside the building, lawmakers began hearing the findings from a parliamentary inquiry committee over the government's bail-out of Bank Century in 2008.

They shouted at one another as the recommendations were read out, including whether to prosecute the two most respected economic brains in Yudhoyono's cabinet, who have been under intense pressure from lawmakers over the issue.

They said they had to save the bank to prevent a systemic economic meltdown at the height of the global economic crisis.