Parliament is under mounting pressure to examine what the royal family knew about Prince Andrew’s links to Jeffrey Epstein and introduce a mechanism to strip him of his titles.

There were calls on Sunday night for Andrew to face a police investigation and for ancient rules barring parliament from freely scrutinising royals and formally removing their titles to be revisited.

The Metropolitan police confirmed they were looking into claims that Andrew asked his Met bodyguard to dig up information on Virginia Giuffre, who had accused him of sexual assault, hours before the bombshell picture of them was published in 2011.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said leaked emails suggesting Andrew passed his close protection officer Giuffre’s date of birth and US social security number were “deeply concerning”.