Jiraiya's a badass ninja. I don't think gathering information is too hard for him to do. Yet I agree that everytime he says something like:
"I have my sources..." it does seem rather suspect. hmmm.

@terra: it's a dumb theory, but who knows? I have confidence that if it was Shino, Kishimoto would pull it off pretty well.
And it would own if one of them was Rin. (do we even know for sure if she's dead??)