Jeremy Corbyn is under mounting pressure to authorise the release of Cold War files kept on him by the Stasi after Theresa May said he must be “open and transparent” about his links to former Communist spies.

Government ministers alluded to the Kim Philby scandal and questioned the Labour leader’s patriotism in agreeing to meet the Czechoslovak agent Jan Sarkocy during the Eighties.

The Daily Telegraph can disclose that MPs intend to call Mr Sarkocy to give evidence in Parliament about his meetings with several Labour politicians, as part of an inquiry into the influence of foreign powers on British democracy.

Details of the file held on Mr Corbyn by the Statni Bezpecnost (StB), the Czechoslovakian secret service, were made public last week, but Mr Corbyn is now under pressure to allow the

release of a Stasi file which was reportedly opened when he visited East Germany in the Seventies.

Mr Corbyn, who was given the codename “Cob” by StB, has admitted meeting Mr Sarkocy but denies supplying information to a foreign power or receiving any payments.