The police have not launched investigations into claims that a former Maltese diplomat had passed on confidential information to the British in the 1970s.

The former second secretary at the Maltese Embassy in Libya, Ives De Barro is being probed by the Foreign Affairs Ministry following reports in l-orizzont that he shared information about high-level meetings between the Maltese and Libyan governments with the British. The disclosure is supposed to have taken place after Labour was elected to power in 1971.

Despite the internal investigation, the police confirmed they have not received any reports and were not investigating any allegations.

According to several articles in l-orizzont, Mr De Barro was said to have met an official from the British Embassy based in Tripoli and disclosed information about a meeting between then Maltese Deputy Prime Minister Anton Buttigieg and Libyan Prime Minister Abdessalam Jalloud. The information was then reportedly passed on to the Commonwealth and Foreign Office in North Africa. According to the newspaper, the Maltese diplomat had told his British colleague that the two delegations discussed the possibility of Libya giving Malta funds.

Several attempts to contact the former diplomat were unsuccessful. A woman who answered the phone at home said that "he was not taking phone calls at the moment".

Although retired, the former diplomat recently served as a consultant to the Foreign Office on the repatriation of illegal immigrants. However, he has been told not to report for work after the first reports appeared in the General Workers' Union-owned newspaper.

A lawyer had told The Times there were a number of sections in the law that could be applied in this sort of case, such as disclosing official secrets and divulging information obtained through a public role.

However, he insisted it was too early to say what would happen, especially since such matters were very much a grey area, which also made it difficult to say whether the case was time barred.

The case was even raised in Parliament by former Opposition Leader Alfred Sant who in a question to the Prime Minister described it as "a most serious case of national treason".