WASHINGTON — In a direct challenge to President Bush, a House panel said yesterday it has prepared subpoenas to force CIA officials to testify about the agency’s secret destruction of interrogation videotapes.

The Justice Department had blocked the officials from appearing at a closed hearing before the panel this week, citing the department’s ongoing investigation into the destruction of videotapes of the harsh interrogation of two Al Qaeda suspects in 2002. The CIA destroyed the tapes in 2005. The House Intelligence Committee’s threat marked the second challenge to a White House attempt to shut down independent investigations into the matter, and escalates a fight over which branch of government properly has jurisdiction.

On Tuesday, a federal judge rejected an administration effort to keep the courts out of the probe and summoned Justice Department lawyers to court on Friday to discuss whether destroying the tapes violated a court order to preserve evidence. Senators also voiced frustration about being denied details of the CIA’s destruction of videotaped terror interrogations, urging the Bush administration’s nominee for deputy attorney general to cooperate with congressional inquiries.

There was little doubt after the two-hour hearing, however, that U.S. District Judge Mark Filip would easily win Senate approval for the Justice Department’s no. 2 job. His confirmation hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee came amid a brewing legal showdown over the tapes the CIA acknowledged were destroyed in 2005. Democrats who control the House and Senate are demanding more information about the videos against the Justice Department’s claims that releasing such details might taint what could become a criminal case.

“I hope that Mark Filip reassures us that he understands that the duty of the deputy attorney general is to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law,” Senator Leahy, a Democrat of Vermont, said.