Super-injunctions are on the rise. At least a dozen have been issued by the courts this year which is thought to be double the number last year. Some people estimate that as many as 300 may be in existence, stretching back over a couple of decades of litigation.

The problem is that that no one knows. There is no central court database where someone can check what injunctions have been made — and even if there was, it would not help with the super-injunction.

The whole point of these is that their very existence is secret. So whereas an ordinary injunction or court order bans the media from reporting certain facts, the super-injunction prevents reporting that an individual or company has even obtained the order.

The recent clash between the courts, media and Parliament over the Trafigura injunction brought them into the limelight. Carter-Ruck, lawyers for the London-based oil trader at the centre of a toxic waste dumping scandal in Africa, obtained an injunction to stop The Guardian reporting the contents of a confidential report commissioned by the oil trader.

Labour MP Paul Farrelly tabled a parliamentary question revealing the injunction’s existence — but the newspaper was advised that it could not report his question — the injunction apparently trumped parliamentary privilege.

Within hours Carter-Ruck had clarified its position and said that the injunction did not seek to bind reports of parliamentary proceedings — and has since insisted that it never intended its injunction to prevent media reports of Parliament.

The episode has exposed the super-injunction as the latest enemy of press freedom. It has also highlighted the increasing tensions inherent in attempts by the courts to control the media in the internet age.

The existence of the parliamentary question tabled by Farrelly prompted a flurry of critical comment on Twitter — completely ignoring any injunction restricting such comment.

The issues were at the heart of a parliamentary discussion this week, held under Chatham House Rules — so it cannot be reported in other than broad terms — by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. But there was a consensus that there is a problem.

Super-injunctions are not new. They date back at least to the 1990s when they were employed by Robert Maxwell, the newspaper proprietor. What is new is that suddenly a wider public knows about them — and a public not mindful to respect them.

While newspapers might consider themselves bound for fear of breaching contempt laws, the blogosphere does not. At his recent press conference, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, acknowledged this difficulty.

It did not render injunctions entirely useless, he said. Courts could issue them — and enforce them, where they knew who had broken them. The problem came, however, when the source of the leaked material was not known.

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