An ex-rapper who grew up in Maida Vale has been arrested in southern Spain on suspicion of joining fighters for so-called Islamic State in Syria.

Two sources close to the investigation told The Associated Press that police arrested Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary and two other men at a rented flat.

Abdel Bary is the son of an Egyptian operative of al Qaeda who was convicted over events related to the 1998 bombings at US embassies in Africa that killed 224 people.

A media release from Spain’s National Police did not name Abdel Bary. It described him as an Egyptian national who left Europe to fight in Syria and Iraq.

The police statement also called him “one of the most sought terrorists in Europe, both because of his criminal trajectory in the ranks of Da’esh (Islamic State) and because of the high danger that he represented”.

He and the two other men were arrested overnight at the flat in Almeria, a port city in south-eastern Spain, the AP learned.

The three were being interrogated on Tuesday and were scheduled to appear before a National Court judge in Madrid on Wednesday, according to a spokesman for the court.

Police said the operation was the result of “international cooperation” between agents specialised in fighting terrorism who suspected that the Egyptian suspect might be travelling through Spain as he tried to return home from the Middle East.

Abdel Bary, who is believed to be 29, grew up in London to become a rapper known as Lyricist Jinn and L Jinny. Music videos still available online show him performing raps with references to drug use, violence and his family’s experience as asylum seekers in Britain.

Bary’s father, Abdel Abdul Bary, was extradited in 2012 to the United States, where he was tried for the twin bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The father was convicted in New York and sentenced in 2015 to a 25-year prison term.

The UK Foreign Office declined to comment on Tuesday’s arrests, referring queries to the Spanish police.