MPs to ask Czechoslovakian spy to give evidence about links with Labour politicians like Corbyn

British MPs will call on the former Czechoslovakian spy Jan Sarkocy to give evidence in parliament about his links with Labour politicians during the Cold War.

Pressure is mounting on Jeremy Corbyn to reveal his links to Communist spies, after details of a file held by the Czechoslovakian secret service (StB) claimed that the Labour leader knew Sarkocy was an agent and that Labour MPs were paid to give information.

The Telegraph reported that MPs on the cross-party foreign affairs select committee will call Sarkocy to give evidence in Parliament and Corbyn may also be required to respond to any claims made against him.

Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the committee, said: "We are planning to look at how nation states undermine democracy and the rule of law.

"It is Russia and other countries as well that are trying to do it. While we are doing that it may be worth asking people who have actually tried to do this in the past to tell us how they did it.

"This is evidence that the attempt to undermine democracy has always relied on useful idiots. It is interesting to see how even today we are seeing this with Russia's activity in the West and it is clear that the examples in the former Soviet dictatorship have got echoes today," the Telegraph reported.

The prime minister Theresa May has called for Corbyn to be "open and transparent" and allow the release of a Stasi file said to have been opened when he visited East Germany in the Seventies.

Meanwhile, Michal Miklovic, from the National Memory Institute in Slovakia told the Times that Corbyn had been targeted during the Cold War because of his disdain for capitalism and with the hope he could give information about the British secret services.

"The most important task of Jan Sarkocy in Britain was to get the information about British secret services. It's possible he assumed that Jeremy Corbyn, as MP, may obtain this kind of information," Miklovic said.

"Some affections towards eastern European communist regimes and will to provide information against a common enemy, the capitalist system, were more expected," he added.

A Labour spokesman said: "Jeremy Corbyn was neither an agent, asset, informer nor collaborator with Czechoslovak intelligence. Jan Sarkocy's account of his meeting with Jeremy was false 30 years ago, is false now and has no credibility whatsoever."