diff --git a/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/WorkingTreeIterator.java b/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/WorkingTreeIterator.java
index 8db0516de..7387cb649 100644
--- a/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/WorkingTreeIterator.java
+++ b/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/treewalk/WorkingTreeIterator.java
@@ -395,7 +395,11 @@ public abstract class WorkingTreeIterator extends AbstractTreeIterator {
 	private ByteBuffer filterClean(byte[] src, int n)
 			throws IOException {
 		InputStream in = new ByteArrayInputStream(src);
-		return IO.readWholeStream(filterClean(in), n);
+		try {
+			return IO.readWholeStream(filterClean(in), n);
+		} finally {
+			safeClose(in);
+		}
 	}
 
 	private InputStream filterClean(InputStream in) {