WASHINGTON — The House Ethics Committee in February approved a trip by House staffers to Turkey sponsored by a nonprofit group that is part of an alliance that was already under investigation for improper payments for a 2013 trip to Azerbaijan, records show.

The Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent agency that investigates House ethics, had already told the House panel it was probing the 2013 trip. The Washington Post reported in May that OCE had concluded the trip was secretly paid for the state-owned oil company of Azerbaijan, a violation of House travel rules. OCE investigators found the oil company funneled the $750,000 for the trip through a web of nonprofits.

OCE was created in 2008 to review ethics cases and make recommendations for further action to the Ethics Committee, which maintains sole authority to punish members of Congress.

The Ethics Committee on Monday acknowledged for the first time it is investigating the May 2013 trip to Azerbaijan in which 10 House members and 29 staffers accepted travel from five nonprofits that were part of the Turkic American Alliance, a Washington-based group of organizations representing Balkan, Turkish and Central Asian Americans.

Groups that claimed to be paying for portions of the 2013 trip included the Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians Turkic American Federation of Midwest and the Turkic American Federation of Southeast — all members of the Turkic American Alliance.

The committee said it began investigating the Azerbaijan trip even before it received OCEs report on May 8. Even so, it approved $11,000 worth of travel for five staff members to Turkey on a trip sponsored by a group called the West America Turkic Council, whose president, Ozkur Yildiz, is one of six board members of the Turkic American Alliance.

Ethics Committee spokesman Tom Rush declined to comment on the committees review of the Turkey trip.

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