A fugitive multi-millionaire at the heart of an eavesdropping scandal that brought down former Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government has been arrested in Spain.

Marek Falenta was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison in Poland in December 2016 for setting up an eavesdropping system at two high end Warsaw restaurants that saw waiters record conversations between businessmen and senior politicians.

Spanish police said Mr Falenta was arrested in a luxury apartment in the eastern seaside town of Cullera, near Valencia.

"When police turned up at the flat, the suspect's partner asked agents to enter immediately as [Mr Falenta], realising police were there, threatened to throw himself off the balcony on the ninth floor," officers said.

They eventually convinced him not to jump and detained him.

Spanish police only identified the businessman by his initials, M.A.F and stated he came 67th in Wprost - Poland's list of top 100 fortunes - in 2013.

Poland's Interior Minister Joachim Brudzinski confirmed in a tweet that the man arrested was Falenta, the businessman behind the bugging system which involved recording 700 hours of conversations of senior politicians and financial officials.

The taping scandal rocked the Polish government in 2014 after embarrassing conversations involving the interior minister, finance minister, foreign minister and transport minister from Poland’s pro-European Civic Platform party were published in the media.