Is 'sleazebuster' MP who romped with two teen girls the victim of a 'smear campaign'?

Scottish Nationalist MP Angus Macneil was forced to apologise to his wife and family after admitting to a 'drunken romp' with two teenage girls.

But in a dramatic twist, SNP party leader Alex Salmond suggested the MP had been spied on by MI5 as a result of the honours inquiry.

Mr Salmond said Mr Macneil had made the 'most extraordinary powerful enemies' after the inquiry probed the highest levels of Downing Street.

His complaint to the Metropolitan Police has triggered a 13-month probe which has seen Tony Blair interviewed twice by detectives and fundraiser Lord Levy and top No10 aide Ruth Turner arrested.

Two police forces confirmed they had investigated complaints of 'intense intrusion' against Mr Macneil but said no crimes had been detected.

The Metropolitan Police revealed it had investigated an allegation of a break-in to Mr Macneil's Commons office after claims it had been 'swept' in a covert spying operation, but found no evidence.

Yet the alleged incidents bear striking similiarities to the treatment of former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who claimed he was the victim of dirty tricks by MI6 after speaking out against US foreign policy in the former Soviet state.

After he accused Britain of being complicit in the torture of terrorist suspects by American forces, stories emerged of Mr Murray's affair with a 22-year-old dancer, which the diplomat admitted, and accusations that he offered visas in return for sex, which he denied.

A Sunday newspaper revealed that Mr Macneil 'kissed and fondled' two teenage girls in a hotel room in July 2005.

Mr MacNeil, 36, said he bitterly regretted the incident but was angry it had diverted attention from the 'substantial political issues' he had been pursuing.

The SNP said police had been alerted to allegations Mr MacNeil was subject to a 'suspicious following operation' during the weekend of an SNP conference in Glasgow, of suspicious telephone calls to his home on Barra in the Western Isles and a suspected break-in at his Commons office.

At a public meeting in Stornaway, Lewis, on Monday, Mr Salmond said there had been a 'question of sweeping' Mr Macneil's Westminster office.

Mr Salmond added: "Angus MacNeil is somebody, because of leading the cash-for-honours inquiry, who has made the most extraordinary powerful enemies and I have never seen a member of parliament subjected to this sort of intense intrusion.

"I have to say, given what's been said by the families about the inaccuracies and exaggerations in the story that was printed, I think people around Scotland will be saying after all this investigation was that all they could dig up about him?"

Strathclyde and the Metropolitan Police said they had carried out probes but no crimes were detected, while Northern Constabulary denied they had received a complaint about suspicious calls to his home.

Father of three Mr Macneil admitted he was 'wrong and stupid' to have cheated on his pregnant wife with Judie Morrison, then 17, and Catriona Watt, then 18.

According to an account in a Sunday newspaper, they kissed and fondled on his bed but did not have sex.

The girls' families have claimed the story was exaggerated and inaccurate.

A Met Police spokesman said: "Officers attended but there was no sign of forced entry and nothing was taken. No offences were disclosed."