The body of a man believed to be a British spy has been found stuffed into a large sports bag in a bathroom of his London flat

In his 30s, the man was understood to have been employed as a worker at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the 'listening post' in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, the Daily Telegraph reported Wednesday.

It is believed he may have been on secondment at the headquarters of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, in Vauxhall, an inner city area of South London, just across the Thames.

Scotland Yard began a murder inquiry after making the discovery at the flat in Pimlico in central London Tuesday night.

The body has not yet been formally identified, and informed sources said the man's parents are not in the country.

The last spy to have been killed on British soil was Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian Federal Security Service officer who died of polonium poisoning in November 2006.

GCHQ is one of the three British intelligence agencies and a part of the country's national intelligence machinery.