A senior British government lawyer warned ministers of the danger of going to war with Iraq without specific authorisation from the United Nations, the inquiry into the conflict was told today.

Declassified documents released by the inquiry show that Michael Wood, the then senior legal adviser at the British Foreign Office, warned three months before the invasion that it was not certain if military action would be legal.

In a letter to the office of then attorney general Peter Goldsmith, dated December 9 2002, he said that a “first view” of UN Security Council resolution 1441, passed the previous month, did not authorise the use of force.

Wood went on to say that a “second view” could be taken that the resolution did offer a “conditional authorisation” for military action.

But he warned that there were “possible difficulties” with this argument.

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