Former News of the World executive editor Neil Wallis has reportedly been arrested as part of the phone hacking inquiry.
Police confirmed they had arrested and are currently questioning another suspect as part of their Operation Weeting investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World newspaper.
Wallis, 60 is reported to be held at an address in London area on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications while working at the News of the World, one of the papers owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International.
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Wallis is the ninth person to be arrested since the phone hacking inquiry was re-opened by detectives in January this year.
The tabloid veteran became deputy editor of the News of the World in 2003 and served under Andy Coulson's editorship before becoming the paper's executive editor in 2007.
Wallis, who lives in Chiswick, west London, joined Rupert Murdoch's UK newspaper group News International in 1986, rising to become deputy editor of the Sun.
He was editor of Sunday tabloid the People from 1998 until he joined the News of the World five years later.
After leaving newspapers, he started working for entertainment PR firm the Outside Organisation in 2009.
He is also a former member of the editors' code of practice committee of the Press Complaints Commission, the British newspaper industry's self-regulating body that has been accused by politicians of being too weak to tackle serious journalistic malpractice.
Police are investigating allegations that journalists on News of the World, which closed last Sunday, hacked the phones of members of the royal family, politicians and celebrities, listening to their voicemails.
Allegations that they hacked the phones of British solders and victims of crime, including child murders and the 2005 London bombings, sparked nationwide public outcry and triggered the current inquiry into unethical practices by journalists at News of the World.
The Sun and the Sunday Times, two other papers in Murdoch’s News International stable, were also implicated after The Guardian newspaper revealed that reporters allegedly repeatedly targeted Gordon Brown, trying to access his voicemail and obtaining information from his bank account, his legal file and his family's medical records when he was finance minister and prime minister.
The Guardian also found that details from Gordon Brown’s infant son's medical records may have been obtained by journalists.
Last week, detectives arrested News of the World’s former editor Andy Coulson, who went on to become Prime Minister David Cameron's media chief before resigning in January.
Coulson, 43, who was Downing Street communications chief until January this year, was arrested by officers on Friday over alleged phone hacking and illegal payments to police.
He was released on bail until October.
In April, News of the World’s chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, one of its senior reporters James Weatherup, and Ian Edmondson, a former senior editor who was sacked after an internal inquiry into his conduct, were also quizzed about the claims.
