U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday said that the private sector must be willing to take on some risk for his bank asset cleansing plan to work.

Geithner, briefing media on the plan, said creating public-private partnerships to buy distressed assets from banks will help to avert a longer and deeper recession and make it easier for banks to raise private capital.

"For these programs to work investors have to be prepared to take some risk," Geithner said.