Charlie Sheen released from the Pitkin County Jail on bail

Actor Charlie Sheen spent much of Christmas Day in a cell after being accused of domestic violence.

Police arrested the 44-year-old Platoon and Wall Street star on Friday morning after an emergency call from a house in the ski resort of Aspen, Colorado.

An ambulance went to the house, but no-one was taken to hospital.

Police said the Two and a Half Men TV sitcom star was suspected of assault, menacing and criminal mischief. He was released on $8,500 (£5,300) bail.

Mr Sheen is the son of actor Martin Sheen and brother of actor-director Emilio Estevez.

He was married in May 2008 to Brooke Mueller Sheen, a property investor who gave birth to the couple's first children, twin boys, in March.

Two and a Half Men has proven one of US TV's most popular sitcoms and made Charlie Sheen America's highest paid TV star in 2008.

It is not the actor's first brush with the law. He was arrested in 1996 for assaulting a woman, who claimed she had been knocked unconscious at his home.

He was also the only star named as a client of "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss, testifying at her trial that he had paid her $50,000 for escorts.

Mr Sheen ended up in hospital in 1998 following a drug overdose and checked into rehab on his release. Subsequently arrested for drinking and drug driving, he went back to rehab on doctor's orders.