Child abuse allegations against a preacher who helped build Australia’s Pentecostal movement will be investigated by the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, it was announced on Thursday.

The commission will examine how the Sydney Christian Life Centre and Hills Christian Life Centre (now Hillsong Church) and Assemblies of God in Australia (now Australian Christian Churches) treated allegations against the Pentecostal Christian pastor William Francis “Frank” Houston and two other men.

Houston, who died in 2004, confessed in 2000 to sexually abusing a boy in New Zealand more than 30 years earlier. He was immediately sacked by his son, Brian Houston, the high-profile founder of Hillsong.

Further allegations have been made in recent years, including that Houston sexually abused a trainee pastor in the 1980s in an attempt to “cure” him of homsexuality.

Houston was born in New Zealand, training to become a Salvation Army officer at the age of 18 before founding an Assemblies of God ministry, Fairfax reported in his obituary. In 1977 he left for Sydney, where he founded the Christian Life Centre and built the city’s Pentecostal movement.

He has been credited with converting high-profile people to the church, including the jockey Darren Beadman.

In a statement provided to Guardian Australia, Hillsong Church said it “ welcomes any inquiry and will co-operate fully with the Royal Commission.”

The royal commission will also look into the treatment of allegations from the 1980s and 90s against a former teacher, Kenneth Sandilands, at the Northside Christian College and the Northside Christian Centre (now Encompass Church) in Bundoora, Victoria, and the response of the Australian Christian Churches to allegations against Jonathan Baldwin. Both men are still alive.

Encompass Church said it “welcomed” the public hearing, and would continue to cooperate fully.

“Child abuse is abhorrent and goes against everything we stand for,” a senior pastor, John Spinella, said in a statement. “These public hearings of the royal commission are an important opportunity for those who have suffered pain and hurt as a result of actions of the past to be heard.

“As a church we have recognised these past failures and take the opportunity to apologise for the suffering and pain endured by those who were abused.”

The public hearing will run from 7 October in Sydney and will be the 18th for the royal commission. Previous public hearings have put the spotlight on numerous churches, schools and government organisations, including the Catholic Church, the Salvation Army, Marist Brothers, Swimming Australia, the Scouts and New South Wales government-run homes and disciplinary institutes.

“Any person or institution who believes that they have a direct and substantial interest in the scope and purpose of the public hearing is invited to lodge a written application for leave to appear at the public hearing by 23 September 2014,” the royal commission said.