Facebook's business model is under threat from proposed privacy regulations protecting internet users from web giants, Sir Nick Clegg has claimed.

The former deputy prime minister, who became the social media firm's chief lobbyist last year, told senior EU officials that plans to protect users' personal messages could "outlaw" its current relationship with online advertisers, according to documents unearthed by The Sunday Telegraph.

The warning was made in one of a series of private meetings Sir Nick has held with European and UK figures as he tries to influence ministers and officials planning crackdowns on social media companies as part of growing concerns about online privacy, abuse, and disinformation.

Documents obtained by this newspaper show that Sir Nick met Jeremy Wright, the Culture Secretary, on the fringes of the World Economic Forum in Davos in January to discuss an impending set of Government proposals to protect children from online harms.

The plans would place social media firms under a statutory duty of care, which could see them fined or prosecuted if they fail to protect users from online harms.

The Government said the meeting formed part of its assessments of the "costs and benefits" of policies. Sir Nick, who worked at the European Commission in the 1990s and then as a Member of the European Parliament before joining the Commons, also held meetings with three EU commissioners in the space of a week in January - his third month in his new role.

In a meeting with Andrus Ansip, the vice president of the European Commission, on Jan 28, he raised concerns about the body's proposed e-privacy regulation, which would require firms to request the consent of their account holders to access and use their personal communications - including to target them with advertisements.

"Nick Clegg stated as main Facebook's concern the fact that the said rules are considered to call into question the Facebook business model, which should not be 'outlawed' (e.g. Facebook would like to measure the effectiveness of its ads, which requires data processing)," according to minutes obtained by this newspaper.

"He stated that the [existing] General Data Protection Regulation is more flexible (by providing more grounds for processing)."