Claims that beverage companies are profiteering from container deposit schemes in South Australia and the Northern Territory will be the subject of a Senate inquiry.

Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson and Independent senator Nick Xenophon combined in the Senate on Thursday to push for an inquiry into the pricing and revenue allocation practices of the beverage industry.

A recent report by the Boomerang Alliance said some beverage companies charged excessively high fees, failed to return unused handling fees and pocketed tens of millions of dollars while ripping off consumers.

The Alliance says on its website it is a group of environmental groups working towards zero waste in Australia.

Senator Whish-Wilson says the inquiry is a step towards developing a national container deposit scheme.

"A Senate inquiry should allow us to get to the bottom of beverage industry pricing tactics and help ensure similar problems wouldn't occur under any national container deposit scheme," he said later.

"A national container deposit scheme clearly has multi party support in addition to 82 per cent national community support according to recent polling."

The senators have called on the inquiry by the Environment and Communications References Committee to complete its report by November 22.