The Vatican confirmed on Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI's butler had been arrested on suspicion of leaking confidential documents and letters from the pontiff's private study to the media.

A statement from Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said that Paolo Gabriele was still in custody and been allowed to meet two lawyers of his choice, adding that investigations were continuing.

It said secret documents had been found at the butler's home in the Catholic Church's city state, but that a judge would decide whether he should be prosecuted.

"Everyone in the Vatican knows him, there is a feeling of surprise and grief, as well as great sympathy for his family, who are well liked," Lombardi later told journalists. "We hope that his family can get over this ordeal."

Gabriele, who the Vatican said had "all the judicial safeguards provided for in the Vatican's penal code" faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in jail if convicted.

La Stampa newspaper quoted an anonymous priest, who it said had once been Gabriele's confessor, as expressing strong doubts about the butler's guilt.

"He loves the pope so much that he would never betray him," the priest said.

"I have known Paolo for years... I have accompanied him spiritually and I can state that I found him a person who loves the Church and is very devoted to the popes, John Paul II to begin with and now Benedict XVI.

"What is going on is incomprehensible to me because everyone in the Vatican held Paolo in high esteem. I never heard anyone speak ill of him or any gossip about him, which is rare because in our environment you often hear slander."

Italian media said Friday that Gabriele, 46, had been working as a butler in the papal apartments since 2006. One source said the pope was "saddened and shocked" by this "painful case."

Gabriele was a member of the small team which works daily in the pope's apartments, but media reports said he was not the only suspect in the leaking of documents, some of which ended up in a new book published a week ago.

Gianluigi Nuzzi's "His Holiness" reproduces dozens of top secret and private letters and faxes which were reportedly smuggled out by whistle-blowers tired of corruption and unhealthy bitterness in the Vatican.

The number of people who have access to the pope's private study is very limited, and includes his butler, four nuns and Benedict's two secretaries, Georg Gaenswein and Alfred Xuereb.

Last month, the pope set up a special commission of cardinals to probe the leaks, which began in January and have seen a number of private documents splashed in the Italian media -- to the embarrassment and rage of the Holy See.

The documents shed light on many Vatican secrets, including the Church's tax problems, the funding of Catholic bodies, sex scandals and negotiations with hardline traditionalist rebels.

The documents have also centred on the activities of Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and of the Vatican bank, whose head Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was sacked on Thursday in another blow to the Vatican.

Tedeschi, 67, was removed by the bank's board for failing to clean up the image of an institution that has come to symbolise the opacity and scandal gripping the Holy See's administration.

Tedeschi, an expert on financial ethics, had also recently been suspected of being one of those behind the leaks.