Education secretary Michael Gove has been plunged into a potentially toxic row over allegations that members of his department have used the social networking site Twitter to launch highly personal attacks on journalists and political opponents and to conduct a Tory propaganda campaign paid for by the taxpayer.

The allegations raise questions about senior members of Gove's team and have prompted concerns in the Tory party about the role of ministerial special advisers.

An anonymous Twitter account called @toryeducation is regularly used to attack critical stories about both Gove and his department. It is often abreast of imminent Tory policies, suggesting it is coming from close to the centre of government. However, it is also used to rubbish journalists and Labour politicians while promoting Gove's policies and career. Issuing party political material and indulging in personal attacks are both clear breaches of the special advisers' code and the civil service code.

In an unfortunate echo of the way the previous Labour government's spin doctors smeared the weapons scientist David Kelly, the account has likened one respected reporter, the Financial Times' education correspondent, Chris Cook, to Walter Mitty and suggested he was a "stalker". It has also retweeted insinuations about his personal life.

The Observer launched an investigation into @toryeducation last week after its political editor became a target. Last weekend the account accused Toby Helm of being "a Labour stooge" while he worked at the Daily Telegraph.

It also suggested Helm was "like [Alastair] Campbell and [Tom] Baldwin – an activist, not a professional hack" – references to the Labour party's current and former spin doctors.

The Observer understands that two of Gove's special advisers, Dominic Cummings and Henry de Zoete, were approached in 2011 by Henry Macrory, then Tory party head of press, and were asked to tone down their input into the feed which Macrory thought was inappropriate.

Macrory is understood to have received assurances from the two advisers that they would moderate their tone.However, the highly partisan nature of some of the account's subsequent comments suggest Macrory's instruction has not been followed.

Early last week De Zoete denied he was a contributor to @toryeducation and said he did not know who was involved. After specific questions were put to the two advisers on Friday both refused to address directly whether they had ever contributed to or written for the feed or been contacted about it by a senior Tory official who voiced concerns over their contributions.

Since the Observer informed the DfE that it was going to publish its story, @toryeducation has dramatically cut its output.

The controversy has come to light after former children's minister Tim Loughton, sacked in the September reshuffle, was, according to the Spectator magazine, accused by a "senior Department for Education [DfE] source" of being a "lazy, incompetent narcissist obsessed only with self-promotion" after he criticised the way the department was run.

Loughton has made an official complaint to the permanent secretary at the department, Chris Wormald, asking him to launch an official inquiry. The Observer has asked Wormald to launch a similar inquiry into the activities of any departmental official found to have been involved with @toryeducation.

Observer investigations suggest that Cummings and De Zoete, whose near £70,000 salaries are funded by the taxpayer, have contributed regularly to the account during working time.

Following the Damian McBride affair, when the former Labour spin doctor was forced out of his job for trading rumours about the private lives of Tory politicians, changes to the codes for special advisers and ministers ensured ministers must now take ultimate responsibility for their special advisers, commonly known as spads.

The code states that spads "should avoid anything which might reasonably lead to the criticism that people paid from public funds are being used for party political purposes… the preparation or dissemination of inappropriate material or personal attacks has no part to play in the job of being a special adviser as it has no part to play in the conduct of public life. Any special adviser ever found to be disseminating inappropriate material will automatically be dismissed by their appointing minister."

Gove's lieutenants have come under scrutiny over their use of new technology before. In 2011, the FT's Cook revealed that Gove's advisers used private email accounts to keep sensitive information away from the department's civil servants. The move meant the emails could not be scrutinised by the public under the Freedom of Information Act.

On the 22 September 2011, Cook tweeted that he had spoken to Macrory and received reassurance that the abuse would stop: "I have just spoken to the head of the Tory party press office. I am told the defamation is going to stop."

The row threatens to become an embarrassment for Gove – seen by some Tories as a potential future leader. Gove is close to both special advisers and has described them as "members of a much-maligned tribe" and "the real heroes of reform".

Last December @toryeducation tweeted Alastair Campbell, who has talked openly about his past mental breakdown: "D'you often accuse people u disagree with of "meltdowns"... Or are you still worried about the stigma around mental illness?"

Set up in February 2010, the Twitter account's creator originally claimed to be a "Conservative Education Press Officer Pantomime Villain of leftie Education Folk". The reference to Conservative education press officer was dropped in later tweets. Conservative HQ's own Twitter account lists @toryeducation as one of four Twitter feeds "run by staff at Conservative campaign headquarters". Conservative Central Office insisted it has nothing to do with the account.

The editor of the Observer, John Mulholland, has written to both Gove and Wormald, asking them to investigate the Twitter account. Both men asked for the Observer to supply further evidence before they would decide the appropriate steps to take.

This newspaper also contacted both De Zoete and Cummings on Friday and asked them whether they were, or ever had been, involved in @toryeducation.In a single sentence email response, De Zoete stated: "I am not toryeducation."

In response, the Observer indicated that this did not answer the questions the paper had put to him – namely, that he had written or contributed to the Twitter feed, and had been spoken to about his contributions by a concerned senior Tory official. He declined to respond to these specific questions.

In a series of emails, Cummings repeatedly declined the opportunity to deny that he had written or contributed to the account, or that a senior Tory official had spoken to him about contributions he had made. In one email he said Helm and Cook should take "a Twitter detox because it's melting your brains, focus on what's important, stop behaving like eight-year-olds".

In response to the question, "Can you confirm, or deny, that a senior Conservative party official – in late summer 2011 – voiced concerns directly to you about the tone of the contributions you were making to @toryeducation," Cummings replied: "Of course I'm not this Twitter account and never have been, I focus on project-managing priorities, I don't waste my time on Twitter and you should tell your staff to do the same."

A follow-up email pointed out to Cummings that this response did not answer the two specific claims that had been put to him – of contributing to the Twitter feed and of having been spoken to by a senior Tory official about his contributions. He was again invited to respond directly to these questions. This was met with no response.

Cummings is considered one of the leading lights in the Tory party but is a divisive character. He was once Iain Duncan Smith's director of strategy but quit after only a few months and branded the former Tory leader "incompetent".

When working for the New Schools Network he refused to help civil servants who had been asked to seek information under the FOI act .