Statement due on lost al Qaida file

The official at the centre of an investigation into the loss of the sensitive files relating to al Qaida and Iraq was suspended from his duties on Wednesday night.

The senior civil servant, who has not been identified, was questioned in an internal inquiry after sensitive files relating to al Qaida and Iraq were left on the train.

He remained at work in Whitehall after the loss was discovered but a decision was later taken that he should be suspended from work while inquiries continue.

It is understood the Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell's decision was taken after the issue was brought to the attention of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The loss of the documents is the subject of an internal Cabinet Office inquiry and a separate probe by the Metropolitan Police, which launched a large-scale hunt for the papers after they were declared missing on Tuesday.

The files eventually came to light after being passed to the BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner by the member of the public who discovered them inside an orange cardboard envelope left on a train from London Waterloo to Surrey.

The individual who left the documents on the train is a senior civil servant working in the Cabinet Office's intelligence and security unit, which contributes to the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee.

It is understood that his work involves writing and contributing to intelligence and security assessments and that he has the authority to take documents of this sort out of the Cabinet Office, as long as strict procedures to ensure their safety are observed.

One of the documents is an assessment of Iraq's security forces, while another reports on "al Qaida vulnerabilities" and is understood to look at the state of the Islamist terror network in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan.