A Foreign Office minister told Libya in February this year that Gordon Brown did not want the Lockerbie bomber to die in jail, according to an official minute released today.

Abdulati Alobidi, the Libyan Minister for Europe, told how he had warned Bill Rammell, a Foreign Office Minister visiting Tripoli, that Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi should not be allowed to die in a Scottish prison.

"Mr Alobidi confirmed that he had reiterated to Mr Rammell that the death of Mr Megrahi in a Scottish prison would have catastrophic effects for the relationship between Libya and the UK," the note released by the Scottish government said.

"Mr Alobidi went on to say that Mr Rammell had stated that neither the Prime Minister nor the Foreign Secretary would want Mr Megrahi to pass away in prison but the decision on transfer lies in the hands of the Scottish ministers."

The note relates to a meeting in March between Scottish officials and a Libyan government delegation including Mr Alobidi.

Al-Megrahi, who is dying of cancer, was released last month on compassionate grounds, prompting protests in the United States and a bitter spat between the UK and Scottish governments over the sequence of events leading up to his release.

That led to today's near-simultaneous release of documents in London and Edinburgh, which was meant to clear the air but appears likely to make the row even worse.

Ten letters released by the UK Ministry of Justice and Foreign and Commonwealth Office appeared to back Downing Street in its insistence that no explicit pressure had been applied on the Scottish government to release or transfer al-Megrahi.

But there was plenty of evidence to suggest that the UK tacitly supported such a decision, including what appears to be a U-turn by Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, who went back on a previous pledge to have al-Megrahi specifically excluded from a prisoner transfer agreement being negotiated with the Libyans.

Also released today were two letters from the Foreign Office, including one from Ivan Lewis, Mr Rammell's successor at the Foreign Office. Mr Lewis also insisted that the final decision would be up to the Scottish government, but encouraged Mr MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, to consider the Libyan demand for al-Megrahi's release.

The Scottish government released more than 100 pages of documents, including the minutes from a succession of meetings with Libyan government delegations.

Among the documents published by the Scottish government were notes of a meeting between Mr MacAskill and Megrahi at Greenock prison and advice from Scottish officials on the prisoner transfer agreement.

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