MPs have raised the prospect of a formal summons to force Mark Zuckerberg to appear in Westminster, after the Facebook founder's ignored requests to appear in person.

Damian Collins, the chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee investigating the company, said he may take the drastic measure after it emerged that Mr Zuckerberg had agreed to appear before the European Parliament to answer questions on the data scandal surrounding the company.

Mr Zuckerberg will appear before EU politicians in May, a month after the Facebook founder was grilled by US politicians over the company's handling of the data scandal, to explain how Cambridge Analytica was able obtain data relating to 87 million Facebook users. A European Parliament spokesman said: "Mark Zuckerberg will come to [the European Parliament] in May. But he has conditions. Parliament [is] still looking for the right format for the hearing."

On Thursday Facebook's chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer appeared before MPs to face questions about the data row. Mr Schroepfer is the most senior Facebook executive to come before Parliament, but after the five-hour hearing, in which MPs accused Mr Schroepfer of failing to answer questions, they turned on Mr Zuckerberg himself.

"We believe that, given the large number of outstanding questions for Facebook to answer, Mark Zuckerberg should still appear in front of the Committee.