A scientist at the University of East Anglia has been questioned by detectives ­investigating how controversial emails were leaked from the campus's climate research unit.

Norfolk police have interviewed and taken a formal statement from Paul Dennis, 54, another climate researcher who heads an adjacent laboratory.

The leaked emails from the head of the unit, Professor Phil Jones, surfaced just before the Copenhagen conference in December and caused a furore because they suggested that data which did not support theories of global warming was being deliberately withheld. Dennis denies leaking the material.

But it is understood that his links with climate change sceptic bloggers in North America drew him to the attention of the investigating team, and have exposed rifts within the university's environmental science faculty.

Dennis refused to sign a petition in support of Jones when the scandal broke. He told friends he was one of several staff unwilling to put their names to the Met Office-inspired statement in support of the global warming camp, because "science isn't done by consensus".

University sources say the head of department, Professor Jacquie Burgess, received a letter from Dennis at the height of the email uproar, calling for more open release of data. He appears to have disapproved of the way Jones resisted FoI requests.

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