A former Stirling University academic who is embroiled in the US probe into Donald Trump's links with Russia has been named in a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Joseph Mifsud, who allegedly set up meetings between a Trump campaign aide and Russian officials, has been branded a "Russian agent" in papers lodged with a New York court on Friday.

The Maltese professor quit his post at Stirling in November last year in the wake of the revelations.

The lawsuit by the DNC, which is the formal governing body of the US Democratic Party, names as defendants more than two dozen persons and organisations for an alleged conspiracy to interfere in the 2016 elections.

Among them include the Russian Federation, a suspected hacker, the Donald Trump presidential campaign, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr, Wikileaks and Julian Assange, a Russian oligarch and his pop-singer son - and Prof Mifsud.

It comes after a US criminal indictment released in October 2017 quoted a number of emails and summarised verbal communications between ex-Trump foreign policy aide George Papadopoulos and an anonymous academic, who was later named as Prof Mifsud

The interactions between the pair include the Stirling professor allegedly informing Papadopoulos of "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails" on April 26, 2016, an accusation Prof Mifsud has denied.

These interactions occurred several months before an enormous tranche of DNC emails began being released by Wikileaks following server breaches by suspected Russian hackers in July 2015 and April 2016.

In the DNC lawsuit, Prof Mifsud is described as having "substantial connections" to the Kremlin and acting as a "de facto agent of the Russian government in his contacts with Papadopoulos".

The papers also cite an interview the academic gave to an Italian newspaper on October 31 where he admitted meeting the Trump aide "three or four times" and helping connect him with "official and unofficial sources".

But he also told the newspaper, La Repubblica, during the same interview: "I never got a penny from the Russians, my conscience is clean."

The academic's present whereabouts are unknown, with CNN reporting on November 10 that he had "disappeared" from another university in Rome, Italy, where he also teaches.

Buzzfeed recently reported that Prof Mifsud cut contact with his pregnant Ukrainian fiancee following the revelations.

Another Buzzfeed story found that Italian prosecutors had been unable to track the academic down despite his being wanted by a Sicilian court on entirely separate charges of financial wrongdoing at a university in 2010.

As STV News revealed last year, at the time of his interactions with Papodopoulos in the spring of 2016 Prof Mifsud was working for Stirling University as a part-time professorial teaching fellow.

Emails obtained by STV also showed that university management had boasted to staff in the politics department of the academic's links to Vladimir Putin, around the same time as his meetings with the Trump aide.

The Papadopoulos indictment alleges that Prof Mifsud put him in contact with a man who had links to Russia's ministry of foreign affairs.

Prof Mifsud also reportedly arranged a meeting in London where he introduced a Russian woman to Papadopoulos, falsely claiming she was President Putin's niece.

Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to initially misleading FBI agents about his relationship with the academic.

He was indicted as part of US special counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing investigation into the presidential campaign's ties to the Kremlin.

In its lawsuit, the DNC goes on to accuse the Trump campaign of being "aware of" and encouraging the meetings between Papadopoulos and Prof Mifsud.

It names the pair along with 23 other defendants in an alleged conspiracy to destabilise US politics during an election year, hurt Hillary Clinton and the Democrats' campaigns and help elect Trump as US president.

The lawsuit brands the Trump campaign a "racketeering enterprise", citing America's RICO Act which allows co-conspirators within the same criminal enterprise to be charged under one law.

The DNC is seeking millions of dollars in reparations for the "profound damage" the various alleged activities caused the party during the 2016 elections.

Questions have also been raised about Prof Mifsud's activities in the UK, where he became director of the now-defunct London Academy of Diplomacy in 2012 and was involved with the University of East Anglia as well as Stirling.

The Scottish university claimed the academic was hired due to his "portfolio... (in) international affairs and diplomacy, reflecting his academic and professional background in this field".

There is no evidence of any academic research carried out in these fields by Prof Mifsud, whose academic background is in education.

Stirling University refused an information request from STV News for details of Prof Mifsud's academic background in international affairs and diplomacy, citing data protection.

He did serve as a private secretary to former Maltese foreign minister Michael Frendo between 2006 and 2007 but does not ever appear to have been a formal diplomat.

Prof Mifsud was also pictured with UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson at a fundraising dinner in Berkshire last October.

Former UK culture secretary Ben Bradshaw has written twice to Stirling principal Professor Gerry McCormac seeking further clarity on Prof Mifsud's role at the institution.

The Labour MP wanted to know more about the university's involvement with the academic, including the history of his connections with both Prof McCormac and Stirling's ex-deputy principal Professor John Gardner.

He further asked about Stirling's involvement with the institution Prof Mifsud ran from 2012 until its closure in 2016, the London Academy of Diplomacy.

The diplomatic school partnered with Stirling in 2014, around the same time it had reported annual financial losses of nearly £4m - and "administrative expenses" of £7.5m.

Bradshaw has criticised both Stirling and the University of East Anglia for a "lack of transparency" over their dealings with the Maltese professor and the academy

The MP branded his most recent reply from Prof McCormac "wholly unsatisfactory", adding: "It doesn't begin to answer any of my substantive questions."