A leading Nazi-hunter has called on the Danish government to arrest a 90-year-old suspected war criminal.

Efraim Zuroff, Israel director of the Wiesenthal Centre, submitted a claim against Helmuth Leif Rasmussen, who now calls himself Helmuth Rasboel, on Tuesday afternoon.

Mr Zuroff made the submission after finding a book which claimed that Rasmussen was in the “inner circle” of an SS group running a death camp in Belarus.

Mr Zuroff claimed that the 90-year-old was one of 6,000 Danes who volunteered to serve in the SS.

The allegation comes after 94-year-old Oskar Groning was jailed last week for his role as an accessory to the murder of 300,000 Jews during the Holocaust.

Mr Zuroff said the case would encourage more public interest in the bringing Nazis to justice.

He said that after the Second World War, “the Allies lost the political will to bring people to justice.”

During the war, Danish diplomats negotiated with Nazis to secure the escape of 95 per cent of the country’s Jewish population on ships, schooners and fishing boats to neutral Sweden.