The Bank of England said on Wednesday that it had suspended an employee as it escalated a review into whether bank officials had known about or condoned potential manipulation of the currency markets.

The British central bank also released minutes of meetings between officials and industry representatives that indicated that there were concerns about possible manipulation for rates like the 4 p.m. fix for the pound to the United States dollar as early as July 2006.

As regulators in Britain, the United States and other countries investigate whether traders at the world’s largest banks colluded to manipulate foreign exchange rates, questions are being raised about the Bank of England’s role as a watchdog. Two years ago, the Bank of England and other regulators were criticized by British lawmakers for failing to recognize the manipulation of the London interbank offer rate, or Libor, and taking steps to stop it.

“Alarm bells should be ringing when a central bank suspends staff in connection with market rigging,” said Simon Morris, a partner at the law firm CMS Cameron McKenna in London. “This is serious because the whole basis of regulation is based on trust and integrity.”

On Wednesday, the bank said that its oversight committee had begun an investigation to determine whether bank officials were involved in or knew about attempted or actual manipulation of the currency markets or any other improper behavior in the foreign exchange markets.

The law firm Travers Smith has been appointed legal counsel to the committee and will prepare a report on the investigation. The report “will be published in due course,” the central bank said.

“The Bank of England does not condone any form of market manipulation in any context whatsoever,” the bank said in a statement. “The bank has today reiterated its guidance to staff regarding management of records and escalation of important information.”

The central bank said an extensive internal review of documents, emails and other records that began in October had found no evidence that Bank of England employees colluded to manipulate the currency market or share confidential client information.

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“The bank requires its staff to follow rigorous internal control processes and has today suspended a member of staff, pending investigation by the bank into compliance with those processes,” the bank said.

The employee was not identified, and the Bank of England declined to provide more details about the employee’s role.

The central bank said it had examined about 15,000 emails, 21,000 chat room records and more than 40 hours of recorded telephone calls as part of its internal review.

“No decision has been taken on disciplinary action against any member of bank staff,” it said.

The Bank of England has faced questions in recent months about communications between its staff members and traders who were part of an industry subcommittee that discussed issues affecting the currency markets.

In the minutes of a July 2006 subcommittee meeting that were released on Wednesday, “It was noted that there was evidence of attempts to move the market around popular fixing times by players that had no particular interest in that fix.”

The subcommittee, which was made up of bank officials, industry leaders and trade group members, met three or four times a year to discuss developments in the markets.

Several traders who served on the subcommittee are among more than a dozen currency traders who have been placed on leave or fired as a result of internal investigations at several large participants in the foreign exchange markets, including Citigroup and UBS.

The last time the subcommittee met was in February 2013.

The $5 trillion-a-day currency markets are lightly regulated and have been seen as difficult to manipulate.

Many of the world’s largest banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland, have acknowledged that they are facing regulatory inquiries into potential manipulation of the currency markets. Deutsche Bank, the largest player in the foreign exchange market, with a share of about 15.2 percent, and Citigroup have both fired employees as a result of their own investigations into the matter.

None of the banks and none of the traders who have been suspended or fired have been accused of wrongdoing.

Before last year, the Bank of England had no formal oversight role for the currency trading markets. It only provided input into voluntary guidelines on conduct adopted by the industry.

Instead, the companies participating in the foreign exchange markets and those companies’ conduct were regulated by Britain’s Financial Services Authority, which was split in two last year.

One of its successors, the Prudential Regulation Authority, falls under the Bank of England and oversees the safety and security of banks, which participate in the currency markets.

The other successor, the Financial Conduct Authority, now regulates the industry’s conduct and is undertaking a separate investigation into the potential manipulation.

Martin Wheatley, the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, has said the currency manipulation accusations are “every bit as bad as they have been with Libor.”

Mark J. Carney, governor of the Bank of England, is expected to appear before the Treasury Select Committee next week, and British lawmakers have vowed to ask him about the currency trading investigation.