Belgian, who was seen in car with Salah Abdeslam two days before atrocity, has been detained along with four other people

Mohamed Abrini, a a key suspect wanted in connection with the Paris attacks in November, has been arrested in Belgium, along with four other people, Belgian federal prosecutors have confirmed. Abrini, 31, has been on Europe’s most wanted list since being identified as one of two suspects seen on CCTV travelling in a car two days before the attacks. Abrini was at the wheel of the Renault Clio that was later used by a team of gunmen in the atrocity.

Abrini was arrested in the borough of Anderlecht, in Brussels, next to the western district of Molenbeek, which has become known for its links to jihadism. Two other suspects were detained at the same time as Abrini, and two further arrests made in an undisclosed location in Brussels.

Prosecutors said they were looking into whether Abrini was the “man in the hat”, the suspect who fled Brussels airport after two accomplices blew themselves up, killing 16 people. A total of 32 people died in co-ordinated attacks on Brussels airport and metro system on 22 March.

Police have been hunting for a man in a black hat and cream-coloured jacket who was caught on airport CCTV wheeling a luggage trolley alongside the two suicide bombers moments before the attack. He left a bomb in the departure hall and left the scene after the explosions. Video footage and photographs released on Thursday showed that he then returned to central Brussels on foot before all clues as to his whereabouts were lost.

Abrini was seen on the road to Paris in the days before the November violence, but disappeared before attackers killed 130 people in coordinated assaults at the national stadium, bars, restaurants and the Bataclan concert hall. Abrini travelled to Paris with Salah Abdeslam, his childhood friend, whose bar in Molenbeek he used to frequent. The pair rented an aparthotel in Alfortville in the Paris suburbs that some of the suicide bombers used as a base before the attacks on the French capital.

Abdeslam, whose older brother blew himself up in the attacks, is believed to be the only survivor of the core team of Paris bombers. He is said to have intended to blow himself up, but apparently changed his mind at the last minute.

After leaving Abdeslam in France, Abrini returned to Brussels on the morning of 13 November, before the attacks. He had been on the run ever since. His DNA was found in two safe houses in the Brussels district of Schaarbeek, as well as in the Renault Clio used during the Paris attacks.

Abrini, who has Belgian and Moroccan nationality, grew up in Brussels and has a history of petty crime. His younger brother died in Syria in 2014 after joining Islamic State’s francophone brigade. Abrini himself is believed to have travelled to Syria last summer.

Abdeslam was arrested in Brussels two weeks ago, four days before Isis suicide bombers struck the Belgian capital, and is now awaiting extradition to France.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest CCTV images of the ‘man in the hat’. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The two other men detained in connection with the Brussels attacks were named as Osama K, alias Naim Al Ahmed, and Herve BM. Investigators are trying to verify whether Osama K was the man who accompanied Khalid el-Bakraoui, 27, who blew himself up at Maelbeek metro station, one hour after the airport attacks. The accomplice to the metro bomber was filmed in the City 2 shopping centre in Brussels buying the bags that were later used in the airport attack.

The Belgian investigation has already established links between a large group of men – many of them childhood friends or brothers – who are suspected of playing different roles in both the Paris and Brussels attacks , the two biggest terror attacks carried out in Europe by Isis.

Najim Laachraoui, 24, who grew up in Brussels, was one of two jihadis who blew themselves up at Brussels airport after ordering a taxi from a flat that had been used as a makeshift bomb laboratory. He was also a suspected Isis recruiter and bomb-maker whose DNA was found on two explosive belts used in the Paris attacks.

Khalid el-Bakraoui, 27, who blew himself up on the Brussels metro shortly after his elder brother Ibrahim had detonated a suicide vest at Brussels airport, was also suspected of playing some kind of logistics role in the Paris attacks. He had rented, under a false name, an apartment in the Forest area of Brussels, where police hunting Abdeslam killed a gunman.

He is also believed to have rented a safehouse in the southern Belgian city of Charleroi used by more of the Paris cell before the November attacks.