Transcripts, obtained by the BBC, show coroner Nadia Persaud questioned Det Insp Rolf Schamberger about the police response to the death.
She noted that a pathologist had recommended the bed-sheet should be further examined, and asked whether that had been done.
Det Insp Schamberger said it had not, saying the "circumstances at the time indicated towards no other external parties being involved".
"The potential outcome of having the blanket analysed, the bed-sheet analysed, could have been to identify maybe where he had been the night before, who had contact with him. But it wasn't submitted," he added.
When the bed-sheet was tested, after Jack Taylor's death, it was covered in Port's DNA and was found to be from his bed.
Police had samples of Port's DNA, so would have been able to identify him, had they checked.
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"And, given the circumstances that he was found with the note that he had written, and the small brown bottle containing the liquid which turned out to be a drug that..."
The coroner interrupted to ask: "That was tested, was it?"
The response came: "It was tested and found to contain G (or GHB). But there was nothing to indicate that it hadn't been self-administered, and that it appeared to be a suicide."
When he was then asked if the bottle was tested for fingerprints or DNA, Det Insp Schamberger said he thought only the contents were tested.
Port's DNA was also later found on the bottle.
Det Insp Schamberger told the inquest that police officers had checked the note found with Whitworth's body against one of his diaries, but confirmed that a handwriting expert had not been consulted.
When it was eventually checked, an expert concluded that the author of the note was not Whitworth but the handwriting was a match for Port's.
The coroner asked if attempts had been made to trace the person referred to in the note.
The detective said attempts had been made but that none "provided any further leads as to who he might have been with on that night."
In the eventual trial of Stephen Port, prosecutors said: "Daniel's movements prior to his death were not checked, and no attempt was made to trace the person referred to in the note as 'the guy I was with last night'."
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Recording an open verdict at the inquest, coroner Nadia Persaud concluded by saying she had "some concerns" surrounding Mr Whitworth's death which had not been answered by the police investigation.
Most concerning were the pathologist's findings of manual handling prior to his death, she said, highlighting a suggestion that someone had lifted Mr Whitworth from under his arms.
"This does raise, in my mind, the question of someone moving him," she said as she ended the inquest at Walthamstow Coroner's Court.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38096318
