PETER MANDELSON’S ARREST for misconduct in public office was prompted by “baseless” claims he was planning to leave the country, his lawyers have said.

The former British cabinet minister was arrested yesterday and later released on bail.

His law firm Mishcon de Reya said in a statement issued this evening: “Peter Mandelson was arrested yesterday despite an agreement with the police that he would attend an interview next month on a voluntary basis.

“The arrest was prompted by a baseless suggestion that he was planning to leave the country and take up permanent residence abroad.

“There is absolutely no truth whatsoever in any such suggestion. We have asked the MPS for the evidence relied upon to justify the arrest.

“Peter Mandelson’s overriding priority is to cooperate with the police investigation, as he has done throughout this process, and to clear his name.”

In comments cited by other media, Mandelson is said to have told friends he had agreed with police to come in for a voluntary interview but that he was then arrested because police suspected he might flee.

On the News Agents podcast, Emily Maitlis read out details from a message she said had been sent from Mandelson to a fellow journalist.

In it, he said that “police arrested me because they claimed the Lord Speaker [Michael Forsyth] received information that I was about to flee to the British Virgin Islands,” and described this as “complete fiction”.

Forsyth said the accusation was “entirely false”.

A spokesperson for Forsyth said: “Any suggestion at all that the Lord Speaker received information about Lord Mandelson’s movements or communicated any such information to the Metropolitan Police Service, is entirely false and without foundation.”

Mandelson has been accused of passing sensitive information onto paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein during his time as business secretary.

As part of the so-called Epstein files, emails from 2009 appear to show Mandelson pass on an assessment by Gordon Brown’s adviser of potential policy measures including an “asset sales plan”.

Brown was British prime minister at the time.

Mandelson also appeared to discuss a tax on bankers’ bonuses and confirm an imminent bailout package for the euro the day before it was announced in 2010.

The emails appeared to be sent to Epstein after he became a convicted sex offender.

The Metropolitan Police declined to comment beyond their statement issued just after 2am overnight, which read: “A 72-year-old man arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office has been released on bail pending further investigation.”

The force said later he has been bailed until the end of May.