Peter Hain 'warned that computer may have been hacked'

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The former Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain has been warned by the Metropolitan police that his computer may have been hacked by private detectives working for the News of the World.

According to a report in the Guardian , senior Northern Ireland civil servants and intelligence agents may also have been targeted.

Hain was Northern Ireland secretary from 2005 to 2007 and would have had access to classified information relating to the peace process, possibly including information about security and informants.

The Guardian reports that he is being asked to confirm whether information held by the Met was obtained from his computer.

A spokesperson for Hain declined to comment, saying only: "This is a matter of national security and subject to a police investigation so it would not be appropriate to comment."

News International also decline to comment.

The Metropolitan police's computer hacking investigation is being carried out by officers from Operation Tuleta

.

Tuleta,

which was launched in June this year, is one of three investigations by the Met related to the phone-hacking scandal, with Operations Weeting and Elveden investigating phone hacking and corrupt police payments.

The Tuleta team made its first arrest earlier this month, taking an unnamed 51-year-old into custody.

During the first two weeks of evidence to Lord Leveson's inquiry into press standards , actor Sienna Miller has told of having her emails accessed by News International – a charge admitted by the publisher – and former military intelligence officer Ian Hurst, who ran army agents within the IRA, has claimed his computer was hacked by the News of the World in 2006 using a "Trojan" computer virus.