The attorney general is considering re-opening the inquest into the death of government scientist David Kelly, it has emerged.

A spokesman for Dominic Grieve, who has the power to go to the high court and ask for a new inquest, said he was reviewing the case in light of fresh calls for the weapon inspector's death to be investigated.

"He remains concerned about this matter and is considering how to take it forward with his ministerial colleagues," said the spokesman.

The move comes after nine experts, including Michael Powers, a QC and former coroner, and Julian Blon, a professor of intensive care medicine, called for a full inquest into Kelly's death saying the official finding – haemorrhage from the severed artery – was "extremely unlikely".

"Insufficient blood would have been lost to threaten life," they wrote in a letter published in the Times.

"Absent a quantitative assessment of the blood lost and of the blood remaining in the great vessels, the conclusion that death occurred as a consequence of haemorrhage is unsafe," the letter continued.

Kelly was the most experienced British expert involved in UN inspections in Iraq intended to prevent Saddam Hussein from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

His body was found in a woods close to his Oxfordshire home in 2003, shortly after it was revealed that he was the source of a BBC report casting doubt on the government's claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which could be fired within 45 minutes.

An inquest was suspended by Lord Falconer, then lord chancellor, before the Hutton inquiry into the circumstances of the scientist's death.

It was not resumed after Hutton's report in 2004 concluded that Kelly killed himself by cutting an artery in his wrist.

Lord Hutton concluded that "the principal cause of death was bleeding from incised wounds to his left wrist which Dr Kelly had inflicted on himself with the knife found beside his body".

In January, five doctors who made an application to the Oxford coroner to have the inquest reopened, were told that Hutton made a ruling in 2003 to keep medical reports and photographs closed for 70 years. Hutton responded by saying the documents could be revealed to doctors and that he had made the gagging order to spare Kelly's family "unnecessary distress".

Hopes for a new inquest have been raised by the change in government and Grieve's appointment as the attorney general.

In April, when he was shadow justice secretary, he called for a review of the government's decision not to release related medical records and postmortem documents. The decision on whether to release the medical records now lies with the justice secretary Ken Clarke.

Grieve has been looking at the matter with Clarke. Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat MP and a junior minister in the government, supports resumption of the inquest. He resigned from the front bench while in opposition to write a book, The Strange Death of David Kelly, which argued that the scientist's life had been "deliberately taken by others".

Baker, who spent a year investigating the case, believes there is enough evidence to suggest that Kelly did not kill himself.

The MP has said that toxicology reports suggested there was not enough painkiller in Dr Kelly's system to kill him, and the method he had apparently chosen to commit suicide was not a recognised or effective one.

Last night a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said the matter was under review. "The request for the release of papers is currently under consideration," said a spokeswoman.