A national poll published on Thursday found that slightly over half of American voters oppose a congressional impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

The NBC News survey of 1,000 registered US voters revealed that 56% did not want Congress to go ahead with the hearings, which are due to begin in the House Oversight Committee later in the day.

A further 39% of those polled said the legislature should start the process of removing Biden from office over allegations of abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption involving his son Hunter.

The poll, conducted from September 15-19, also found that six in 10 independent voters opposed the hearings, as did 88% of Democrats, while 73% of Republicans supported the impeachment inquiry.

The Oversight Committee has been investigating foreign bribery and influence peddling involving the Biden family and entities in countries including Ukraine and China. Biden denies ever discussing foreign business matters with his son.

US Republicans launch impeachment inquiry hearings into Biden on Thursday. The party says the information it has amassed warrants streamlining its multiple probes into an official inquiry empowered to unleash investigators from three House committees to subpoena Biden's bank records.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has accused Biden of lying about his knowledge of his son Hunter Biden's business dealings, which Republicans claim corruptly benefited the Democratic leader when he was vice president.

"House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden's conduct," McCarthy said as he announced the inquiry.

"Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption."

The Biden administration has dismissed the effort as a "stunt", accusing Republicans of trying to distract voters, days ahead of a looming government shutdown sparked by far-right lawmakers.

The Constitution provides that Congress may remove a president for "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

Impeachment by the House -- the political equivalent of a criminal indictment -- would spark a "trial" by the Senate, with the president losing his job if he is convicted.

But opponents say the idea is simply to have a damaging open-ended inquiry going into an election year and that impeachment would never have sufficient support in the House, where the Republicans have a razor-thin majority.

The probe has already obtained more than 12,000 pages of subpoenaed bank records from Biden family members and hours of testimony from Hunter's business associates and from federal investigators.

"(The) problem they have is not that they can't get the evidence. The problem they have is that the evidence does not support their allegations," Dan Goldman, a Democratic congressman and the lead counsel in Republican former President Donald Trump's own first impeachment, said recently in Congress.

"And so why are we going to spend the next few months on bogus and sham impeachment inquiry? Because Donald Trump wants them to, and Donald Trump has been calling them and urging them to do it, because he was impeached twice."

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