A senior Kyrgyz official today warned that the interim government would consider shutting a strategic US airbase if Britain refused to hand over the son of the country's ousted president.

The Kyrgyz government believes Maxim Bakiyev, arrested at Farnborough airport on Sunday, helped organise the violence ravaging the country's south.

Kyrgyzstan's deputy leader of the provisional government, Azimbek Beknazarov, said: "England never gives up people who arrive on its territory. But since England and the US fight terrorism and the arrangement with the airbase is one of the elements of that fight, then they must give over Maxim Bakiyev."

Bakiyev, son of the deposed Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was arrested by immigration officials on Sunday after flying into Britain on a private jet. An arrest warrant had been issued by Interpol on charges of money laundering. He has reportedly sought asylum.

The interim Kyrgyz government believes Bakiyev Jr, one of Kyrgyzstan's wealthiest men, financed the unrest that led to the slaughter of hundreds of ethnic Uzbeks and the displacement of some 400,000. In an unverified telephone recording released in May, a month after his father's government was overthrown, Bakiyev Jr is allegedly heard plotting to stir unrest to bring his family back to power. The elder Bakiyev, who has fled to Belarus, has denied any role in the violence.

The US is concerned the new government could seek to shut the airbase it rents at Manas, its main transit hub for troops and equipment destined for Afghanistan. Resupply flights have not been stopped despite the violence in the south, and Washington has distributed millions of pounds in humanitarian aid through the base since the unrest began.

Analysts have dismissed Beknazorov's threat to shut the base. "It seems like his personal initiative," said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs. "It's total stupidity."

Moscow hopes to see the base shut, eager to maintain a hold over what it sees as its backyard. At the same time, it has denied repeated requests to send peacekeepers to Kyrgyzstan.