Danilo Di Luca encouraged to speak to commission over Giro d'Italia doping claims

UCI president Brian Cookson says Italian cyclist Danilo Di Luca's reported claims that 90 per cent of the Giro d'Italia peloton was doping is a "throwback to an earlier time".

Danilo Di Luca wins the 20th stage of the Giro d'Italia in 2007.

UCI president Brian Cookson says Italian cyclist Danilo Di Luca's reported claims that 90 per cent of the Giro d'Italia peloton was doping is a "throwback to an earlier time", but he would have the opportunity to explain his comments to an independent commission investigating the sport.

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Di Luca - who won the Giro d'Italia in 2007 - was banned for life last December after his third doping offence and his comments were reportedly set to be aired on Italian television last night.

His reported comments drew a savage reaction from American cyclist Andrew Talansky who took to Twitter to blast Di Luca:

"I feel genuine hatred towards Di Luca. He's a worthless, lying scumbag making false statements that hurt the sport I love," Talansky wrote.

"Thankfully his statements are delusional. I wouldn't be in this sport if it was not possible to succeed at the highest level and do it clean."

Speaking in Adelaide today, Cookson - who has established an independent commission to investigate the sport's dark past - said Di Luca would have the same opportunity as everyone else to offer information that would help clean up the sport.

"I notice that CONI (Italian Olympic Committee) have called him in now to explain his comments and that's as it should be," Cookson said.

"I think what he's commenting on is a situation that was in place in his time, I think he's something of a throwback to an earlier time.

"Things that he's been saying are the sort of things that people from his era have said all along, that 'everyone else was doing it, therefore I did it and I was no worse or better than anyone else' but that's what people tend to say when they've done wrong.

"I think it's very sad and that's exactly why we have to have this process that we're going through now, so that we give those people the opportunity to come forward, to talk to the commission, to tell what they know, to give information about the system and about other people who might have been involved in facilitating that system.

"Then see where we get with it, but hopefully that will allow us to draw a line under the situation and if people haven't come forward in the process that we've set up then they deserve everything they get thereafter.

"Let's get that process under way and if people genuinely want to help us rebuild the sport then they'll come and contribute to that process."