Jack Straw has been suspended from the Labour Party over claims of a "cash for access" scandal reported in a national newspaper.
The former foreign secretary, along with Tory MP Sir Malcolm Rifkind, were secretly filmed by the Daily Telegraph in a joint investigation with Channel 4's Dispatches programme apparently offering to use their influence in return for money.
Reporters claiming to represent a Hong Kong-based communications agency called PMR contacted the two senior MPs to say they were seeking to hire senior British politicians to join the company's advisory board.
At one meeting, Mr Straw is alleged to have described how he operated "under the radar" to use his influence to change EU rules for a commodity company which paid him £60,000 a year.
The newspaper reported he claimed to have used "charm and menace" to convince the Ukrainian prime minister to change laws on behalf of the same company.
Sir Malcolm is said to have claimed he could arrange "useful access" to British ambassadors. He also described himself as "self-employed", and added "nobody pays me a salary".
The investigation contacted 12 MPs. Six did not respond, while another said his contacts were not for sale.
Sky's Deputy Political Editor Joey Jones said: "The first thing to ask is of course whether the law might have been broken and I don't think there's anything that stacks up in that sort of way in the detail of the allegations that are laid out.
"The other is is whether any parliamentary rules might have been broken and there it does get murkier, because clearly the fundamental issue is whether or not influence has been brought to bear to try to influence government policy, that is the sort of thing that brought people down in the past.
"Well it's not along those lines exactly, but Jack Straw does talk about the fact that he met the Ukrainian prime minister to try to persuade him to change European Union regulations."
Mr Straw, who is standing down at the general election as MP for Blackburn, said in a statement that the discussions related to what he might do when he left the House of Commons.
He said: "I now face the horrible situation in which what I said is being used to suggest wrongdoing when there was none.
"But I've spent long enough in politics to know how some of the remarks I made in what I had thought was a private conversation will now be used.
"I am mortified that I fell into this trap, despite my best efforts to avoid this, and my previous public criticism of colleagues of all parties who have done so in the past. Of course I am kicking myself."
A spokesperson from the Labour Party said: "We have seen the disturbing allegations against Jack Straw in the Daily Telegraph.
"The Chief Whip has spoken to Jack Straw. He has agreed to refer himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and in the meantime he has agreed the best course of action is to suspend himself from the Parliamentary Labour Party."
Sir Malcolm has also referred himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
Both politicians have strongly denied any wrongdoing.
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