Norwegian police said Thursday they have launched an aggravated corruption investigation into former prime minister Thorbjørn Jagland over his connections to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Jagland was the prime minister of Norway from 1996 to 1997 and secretary general of the Council of Europe from 2009 to 2019. Between January 2009 and March 2015, he also chaired the committee that selects the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The police "have opened an investigation targeting ... Thorbjorn Jagland, over suspicions of aggravated corruption," said Norway's national investigation authority, Okokrim.

The files, made public by the U.S. Justice Department under a law passed last year, include millions of pages of emails and correspondence that have drawn intense scrutiny online and prompted renewed controversy.

Epstein, accused of running a sex trafficking network involving underage girls, was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial.

He had faced charges of sexually abusing dozens of girls, some as young as 14.