The former Conservative Home Secretary, Mr Michael Howard, said yesterday he would have let ex-dictator Gen Augusto Pinochet return to Chile.
It was a matter for Chile to sort out, having made a "very difficult and delicate transition from a difficult past", said Mr Howard, who is now shadow Foreign Secretary. He was speaking on the Breakfast With Frost television programme.
The Tories would ask questions in Parliament about a newspaper claim that officials at the British embassy in Madrid warned Gen Pinochet not to come to Britain on learning he could face an extradition request from Spain, said Mr Howard.
A Foreign Office spokesman insisted last night: "We are quite clear that no such warning was passed to the Chilean embassy in Madrid. The embassy has no knowledge of any embassy official confirming that any such warning was given."
Mr Howard said the reported incident was "typical of the mess and muddle we have had in the Foreign Office since Robin Cook went there". The Law Lords will begin reviewing the matter tomorrow at the request of Gen Pinochet's lawyers.
A Tory backbencher, Mr Gerald Howarth, says he will press the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, about the "astronomical" cost of guarding and transporting the former Chilean dictator during the extradition proceedings.
"Whenever this sorry episode comes to an end, the figure could easily run into millions," he said, "not only in the cost of guarding him but in the cost of lost trade".
The former Foreign Secretary, Lord Hurd, warned that Britain was "playing with explosives" in Chile's "house".
Gen Pinochet has said he regards his extradition battle in Britain as "the most difficult and unjust experience in my life". In a letter to the Chilean people released after his court appearance on Friday, Gen Pinochet claimed he was "absolutely innocent of all the crimes and all the facts of which I am accused" and insisted he was "the victim of a cowardly political-judicial plot".
The 83-year-old general will spend Christmas at his hideaway on the exclusive Wentworth Estate in Surrey.
A close friend, Mr Peter Schaad, told the Frost programme Gen Pinochet " feels confused".
"He has never spoken to me about a plot. I know he feels bitter about the treatment in this country. He would have thought he would be treated better. He adores this country in spite of the fact that he doesn't speak English."
Mr Schaad insisted Gen Pinochet came to Britain believing he had immunity, on a diplomatic passport with the status of senator of a friendly country on a "special mission".
Asked whether he believed either that none of the atrocities under Gen Pinochet happened, or that he had not known about them, Mr Schaad claimed the general was being made a "scapegoat".
Referring to the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, he said one million people died under the dictator Franco and there had been no prosecution, adding: "A Spanish judge ruling on this case is like asking Rembrandt to teach Impressionism at the Chelsea College of Art."