WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new government office established to provide regulators with improved information needed to prevent another financial crisis is asking for advice on how to track complex investment trades.

The Treasury Department's Office of Financial Research said Monday that it was seeking comments on how to design a universal standard for identifying the parties to various financial trades such as investments in complex instruments known as derivatives.

The new research office was created by the legislation passed by Congress last year to overhaul how the financial system is regulated in the wake of the nation's worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

The Treasury's research office said it was coordinating efforts to develop a "legal entity identifier" with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Those two government agencies will play the biggest roles in regulating derivatives under the Dodd-Frank Act overhaul legislation.

That legislation called for new oversight of derivatives, which are traded in an opaque $600 trillion market worldwide. During the financial crisis which struck in the fall of 2008, insurance giant American International Group required a massive government bailout because of severe losses on derivatives trades.

The value of derivatives hinge on an underlying investment or commodity such as currency rates, oil futures or interest rates.

The Dodd-Frank law, enacted in July, includes changes aimed at bringing transparency to the derivatives market.

The request for public comment put out by Treasury's new research office said the goal will be to mandate use of the new identifiers for financial institutions and other investors engaged in derivatives trades. The office is being headed on a temporary basis by Lewis Alexander, with hopes of having someone nominated to fill the post permanently by early next year.