A man was arrested today by officers investigating the discovery of a 300-year-old book bound in human skin, police said.

The macabre discovery was made on the Headrow in Leeds city centre and officers believe the historic ledger may have been dumped following a burglary.

A West Yorkshire Police spokeswoman said a man in his early twenties was arrested in connection with the investigation and technically bailed pending further inquiries.

But officers discovered the man was wanted in connection with unrelated matters in North Yorkshire and he has been remanded in custody.

No further details of either investigation are available, the police spokeswoman said.

Detectives were trying to trace the rightful owner of the book and believe it may have been taken from West or North Yorkshire.

Much of the text is in French. It was not uncommon around the time of the French Revolution for books to be covered in human skin.

The practice, known as anthropodermic bibliopegy, was put to most gruesome practice in the 18th and 19th centuries when accounts of murder trials would be bound in the killer’s skin.

Anatomy books were also often bound in the skin of the dissected cadaver.

In the Second World War, Nazis were accused of using the skin from Holocaust victims to bind books.