Ravi Shankaran, a relative of former navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash who is the main accused in the war room leak case, has been spotted in Sweden after slipping out of Britain when an arrest warrant was issued against him by a UK court.

The court issued the warrant on April 10 after a request from the Central Bureau of Investigation.

After trailing him for over four months, the CBI found him in Sweden. This prompted the agency to send an alert to the Swedish wing of Interpol for his immediate detention, official sources said.

He has been crisscrossing Europe without a valid passport as the external affairs ministry revoked his travel document in 2006.

As a precautionary measure, the CBI alerted several countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium, France [Images], Germany [Images], Denmark and Norway, to detain 43-year-old Shankaran as he could use these nations as a make-shift base to ward off arrest by law enforcing agencies.

CBI officials said they were confident of getting Shankaran extradited to India.

Shankaran is wanted by the CBI for allegedly obtaining classified data, including the navy's acquisition plans and other sensitive material from the war room or directorate of naval operations.