Andy Coulson, the prime minister's former press spokesman, has been arrested and is being held in custody at a police station in south London.

Scotland Yard said that at 10.30am on Friday officers from Operation Weeting – the phone-hacking inquiry – and a team investigating illegal payments to police officers within the Metropolitan force arrested a 43-year-old man who had arrived by appointment.

Scotland Yard said he was being held in custody and would be questioned in connection with allegations of corruption and phone hacking.

The arrest came after Operation Weeting officers were handed further information from News International three weeks ago which detailed allegedly illegal payments to a handful of officers at the Yard.

It is understood Coulson, a former editor of the News of the World, will be held for several hours for questioning. Officers will take him through documentation, much of it handed over by his former employer News International.

He will be questioned on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, contrary to Section 1 (1) Criminal Law Act 1977 and "on suspicion of corruption allegations" contrary to Section 1 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906.

Coulson, who resigned in January as David Cameron's director of communications, had been contacted on Thursday by detectives from Operation Weeting and asked to present himself at a police station. The arrest was brought forward after the new documentation received from News International.

Coulson, who ran the News of the World between 2003 and 2007, is likely to be questioned for most of the day by two teams of officers involved in both inquiries into police bribes and phone hacking.

He is the sixth person to be arrested by the Weeting team. His three former colleagues, Ian Edmondson, Neville Thurlbeck and James Weatherup, were arrested earlier this year.

Last month a freelancer for the News of the World and a reporter from the Press Association were also arrested and bailed.

Coulson's arrest came less than 24 hours after the decision by NI chiefs to shut the News of the World because it had betrayed its readers' trust.

A Scotland Yard statement said: "The MPS [Metropolitan police service] has this morning arrested a member of the public in connection with allegations of corruption and phone hacking.

"The man, aged 43, was arrested by appointment at a south London police station. He is currently in custody."