MOSCOW (AFP) - A Swedish diplomat has left Moscow after being questioned by police for allegedly selling women's tights smuggled from Belarus, Russian television reported Monday, citing the foreign ministry and police.

The NTV television channel aired footage that it claimed showed a diplomat who works in the Swedish Embassy's economics section being filmed during a police raid at a shop in southwestern Moscow selling tights.

The blond man was shown recommending some tights to a woman customer, before telling police he had brought the tights from Belarus in his car, which was shown to have diplomatic license plates.

A Russian foreign ministry official, Nikolai Sandros, said in remarks broadcast on NTV that the diplomat had left Moscow.

"The Swedish side has taken a decision to end the work of (the official) at the Swedish Embassy in Moscow and he has already left Russia," said Sandros, who oversees the ministry's section for managing foreign diplomats.

A spokesman for the Swedish Embassy in Moscow told AFP he could not comment on the report Monday evening.

Police official Alexei Gnatyuk, head of a section that investigates economic crimes in southwestern Moscow, told NTV that police could not arrest the Swede due to diplomatic immunity and had informed the foreign ministry about the case.