HELSINKI, January 21, 2010 (AFP) - Finnish police are investigating whether an IT company employee accessed the prime minister's email and took an image from it with the aim of selling it.

"It is possible that the breach took place in 2007 when an employee of the company that then provided IT services to the state administration unlawfully opened messages in the prime minister’s office e-mail and took possession of at least one image in order to financially benefit from it," the government said in a statement.

The prime minister's office requested Helsinki police begin an investigation in December, when the incident was revealed, the government said.

The suspected employee had passed a security check and had been in the prime minister's study to resolve a mailbox error, the government said.

"The office e-mail service is not used to handle top secret issues relating, for example, to foreign and defence policies," it said.