Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman has ordered an investigation into how human tissue is handled after a second aboriginal family claimed it received the remains of a miscarried fetus in a cardboard box in the mail.

Smitherman appointed Tom Closson, the president and CEO of Toronto's University Health Network, as a fact-finder to determine what happened.

Both allegations are against the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, where tissue from miscarried fetuses were allegedly sent to two aboriginal families in Northern Ontario.

George Smitherman

"This just does not mesh with anyone's thinking of what's appropriate in the circumstances," Smitherman told The Canadian Press.

"So I want some advice from someone I deeply respect."

On Wednesday, the North Caribou Lake First Nation said the hospital in Thunder Bay had sent the remains of a miscarried fetus to Corrine Jeremiah in the mail.

And on Thursday, the Fort Hope First Nation said Zelda Quisses had also received the remains of her miscarried fetus in the mail, in a box labelled "diagnostic specimens."

The Chief of Fort Hope, Charlie O'Keese, said he found the mailing revolting.

The Chief of the North Caribou Lake First Nation has called for a police investigation and a coroner's inquest.

In both cases the families had requested the miscarried fetuses be returned for proper burial and had made the appropriate arrangements to receive them.

The president of the hospital in Thunder Bay, Ron Saddington said there is no way that a fetus had been sent in the mail. He claimed what was sent was a "walnut-sized" tissue sample from a surgical procedure at Sioux Lookout hospital when Jeremiah miscarried in her 11th week of her pregnancy.

The hospital has blamed a new employee for the error.

Health Canada is also looking into the claims from the two communities.