Police are investigating alleged e-mail interception by Rupert Murdoch's Times of London, a British MP said yesterday - dragging Britain's oldest national newspaper into the broadening scandal over press wrongdoing.

Labour Party legislator Tom Watson, who helped lift the lid on phone hacking, released a letter from police confirming they were investigating alleged e-mail hacking by The Times.

Watson, a member of parliament's culture, media and sport committee, had written to police asking them to take up the issue.

The letter from Detective Superintendent John Levett, head of the force's computer hacking investigation, is dated January 25 and tells Watson that "the concerns raised within your letters are under investigation and officers ... are dealing directly with the victim".

The Times has acknowledged that a former reporter tried to intercept e-mails in 2009 to unmask an anonymous policeman who blogged as NightJack.

Editor James Harding told Britain's media ethics inquiry last month that the reporter had acted on his own and had been reprimanded.

Murdoch closed the News of the World in July after the revelation it had eavesdropped on the voicemail messages of crime victims, celebrities and politicians .