  We discuss the properties of the host galaxy and ring light distributions in
the optical and near infrared bands for a sample of Polar Ring Galaxies (PRGs),
presented in Paper I (Iodice et al. 2002, Paper I). The goal of this work is to
test different formation scenarios for PRGs, proposed by different authors in
the last decades, by comparing their predictions with these new data. The
strategy is twofold: i) the integrated colors of the main components in these
systems are compared with those of standard morphological galaxy types, to
investigate whether differences in colors are caused by dust absorption or
difference in stellar populations. We then derived an estimate of the stellar
population ages in PRGs, which can be used to set constrains on the dynamical
modeling and the time evolution of these systems; ii) we analyse the structural
parameters of the host galaxy in order to understand whether this component is
a standard early-type system as its morphology suggests, and the light
distribution in the polar ring to measure its radial extension. These
observational results indicate that the global properties of PRGs are better
explained by dissipative merging of disks with un-equal masses as proposed by
Bekki (1998), rather than the accretion-or stripping-of gas by a pre-existing
early-type galaxy.
