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The arrest came after police issued an efit in November of a man wearing an unusual model of motorcycle helmet.

The motorcyclist was spotted near the scene on an isolated road near Annecy where Hilli, 50, his wife Iqbal, 47, and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf, 74, were murdered on 5 September 2012. A passing cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, 45, was also shot dead.

The 48-year-old man, who was arrested as he left his home in the village of Lathuile close to Chevaline, where the murder took place, has not been identified.

Media reports in France, citing sources close to the case, said he was fired from his job as a municipal policeman last June in Menthon-Saint-Bernard, south of Annecy. He was described by Le Monde as a “taciturn” loner and “arms collector”.

Weapons were reportedly found at his home, where he lives with his girlfriend. Police were carrying out other searches and examining the garden of a house in another nearby village, Tailloires.

It is the first arrest by French police, who have teamed up with British colleagues to investigate the murder.

Although Surrey police declined to identify Zaid al-Hilli as the suspect arrested today, a source in France confirmed that it was the 54-year-old older brother of Saad al-Hilli whose family was savagely attacked by a gunman on a forest track near Lake Annecy in September last year.

Sylvain Mollier was hit by the first bullets, the report leaked to the French Le Parisien newspaper suggests.

The killer then shot Saad al-Hilli, his wife and mother-in-law while they sat in their car.

French investigators suggest the killer was acting alone.

The family, from Surrey, were on a camping holiday on the shores of Lake Annecy when they were killed.

Mr Al-Hilli was killed alongside his wife and mother-in-law last week. His daughters Zainab, seven, and Zeena, four, survived the killing.

There is growing speculation over the motives for the killings. French detectives are reportedly keen to question work colleagues of Saad after discovering that he was killed while working on a secret contract for one of Britain’s biggest defence companies.

Mr Al-Hilli worked for Surrey Satellites Technology Limited (SSTL) near Guildford, and detectives are expected to ask colleagues about whether his work may have made him a target for assassination.

Mr Al-Hilli was part of a team involved in an undisclosed project linked to European Aeronautic Defence and Space. The company designs and launches satellites for clients who want an “eye in the sky” for commercial, civil or security purposes.

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It also reported that Mr Al-Hilli had worked at the internationally-renowned Rutherford Appleton research centre in the 1980s.

Police in France are considering a number of possible motives for the shooting.

Here, former commander of the Flying Squad John O’Connor and criminologist Professor David Wilson offer their insights.

John O’Connor, former commander of Flying Squad:

“The shootings look like they are terrorist-related. The people that have done it are military trained. It certainly seems to be a military assassination. The killers were sending a message about not crossing them. It doesn’t sound like a gangland hit.

“Was the Iraq-born victim involved in the intelligence world? He reportedly worked for AMS 1087 Ltd which is listed as Aerial Photographers and Surveys. Is there any significance in this?

“The killers don’t sound UK-based and I don’t see any connection with criminals in this country.

“It appears the gun was an automatic weapon, used professionally – because of the accuracy. This would lead one to think of trained personnel, terrorists.

It was well planned and professionally executed. You can forget it being carried out by a local villain and I don’t think it was a botched robbery.

“The police should be concentrating on the victim’s background, who he works for, what his movements have been.

“The killings would have taken a lot of planning. A surveillance operation takes time and money. Who is going to sponsor them?

Businessman Saad al-Hilli, 50, told a friend he was scared after being caught up in a bitter inheritance row.

As French police searched for a motive for the bloodbath, one of Mr al-Hilli’s neighbours revealed the businessman admitted he feared for his safety in the weeks leading up to the killing.

Jack Saltman, 67, said Mr al-Hilli mentioned “two or three times” over the last two months something which gave him “cause for concern”.

He added: “He had family in Iraq and I know he was worried about their safety and spoke to them on the phone.

“He told me something about a problem he had and before he left he came round and saw me and asked if I would keep an eye on his house.”

Mr Saltman, a former journalist, said he had passed on the information to detectives.

When asked exactly what Mr al-Hilli had told him, he said: “I am not prepared to say anything more.

“I’ve told the police and if it is relevant I’m sure they will follow it up.”

He added: “He told me he had a problem on more than one occasion.”

It also emerged yesterday that Mr al-Hilli had recently become involved in a bitter legal dispute over an inheritance worth more than €1.2million.

Family friend Zaid Alabdi said: “He told me he had employed lawyers and was involved in a dispute over a lot of money.”

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Detectives believe the gunman used an automatic weapon and may have been a professional killer.

They said three of the victims received bullet shots to the centre of the forehead during the shooting near the village of Chevaline, near Lake Annecy, in the Haute-Savoie region.

French President Francois Hollande, speaking at a press conference in London, where he was attending the Paralympic Games, said “everything will be done” to find the killer.

The British husband and wife killed were named by neighbours as Saad and Iqbal al Hilli.

Public prosecutor Eric Maillaud told AFP the child was only discovered when investigators gained access to the crime scene, some eight hours after a cyclist happened upon the carnage.

Confirming that the three victims in the BMW were from a family of British holidaymakers, he said: “She was hidden under the bodies for some eight hours and didn’t move for the whole time.”

The identity of a dead man described as the father of the family has been “almost certainly” established, while two female victims are yet to be formally identified, the Haute-Savoie prosecutor told AFP.

The suspected assassination happened in a forested area near the village of Chevaline, near Lake Annecy, in the Haute-Savoie region.

The male victim was found at the wheel of the car, and the two dead women in the back – apparently covering the girl, four, who survived.

Another young girl was found near the car, and initial reports said she died later from her injuries. A local prosecutor has now said she is in a critical condition in hospital in the city of Grenoble.

Three of the bodies were found inside a British-registered BMW estate car, while the body of a male cyclist was found nearby in what was described as a “dramatic” crime scene.

The girl was found seriously injured next to the car when emergency crews arrived at the woodland car park near Chevaline, close to Lake Annecy in the French Alps.

Items found in the car suggested that the victims were British.

A British cyclist is understood to have discovered the bodies at 3.50pm yesterday, and is now helping police despite being badly shaken.

One police source said the cyclist had “stumbled across a massacre”, adding that the dead appeared to have been victims of a “deliberate assassination”. Cartridges found at the scene appeared to show that the gunshots came from outside the vehicle.

The Foreign Office said that it was investigating the reports in order to dispatch staff from the nearest British consulate in Marseille to Grenoble where the young girl was in hospital. It could not say for certain if the victims were British. The British embassy in Paris was liaising with UK police.

One theory being investigated is that the occupants of the car may have been targeted because they were in an expensive vehicle, and were tricked into pulling off the road before robbery turned to murder. Police believe the cyclist who was found dead may have tried to intervene when he witnessed an armed robbery taking place.

Eric Maillaud, the investigating prosecutor from Annecy, said: “Two men and two women are the victims. The car is a British-registered BMW estate. One of the male victims was a cyclist. He was found near his bike in his cycling gear. The other man was in the driving seat of the car. The two women were in the back of the car.

“It is a dramatic crime scene like we see on the TV. There is a large number of gun cartridges at the crime scene.”

A police spokesman said a “young girl probably under the age of 10” was airlifted to hospital after being “seriously injured by gunfire”. The spokesman added: “We are looking at the possibility that the three dead people in the car and the young girl were all from the same family. A full multiple murder investigation is under way.”

No firearms were found either inside or near to the vehicle, the officer said.