Hedge funds will come under scrutiny next week when two separate House panels hold hearings on the government’s oversight of the lightly regulated sector.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said he will hold a July 11 hearing on hedge funds to learn how federal overseers “monitor systemic risk related to hedge funds and how that process might be improved.”

A separate July 11 hearing planned by a subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee may yield more pointed questions. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who chairs the subcommittee, told CNBC last month that “when you have this huge amount of capital that is unregulated, there is a potential that investors could end up losing mightily because no one asks.”

Hedge funds – investment vehicles that are available only to wealthy investors – have long been the source of debate in regulatory circles.

Turmoil in the market for subprime mortgages may be fueling new questions. One area of concern for the SEC is how hedge funds value their assets. Hedge funds sometimes invest in complex packages of loans known as collateralized debt obligations, which can be difficult to price because any valuation involves making estimates.