The Scottish government has opened an inquiry to find out whether a chandelier hanging in the first minister’s official residence was looted by the Nazis.

According to official records, the chandelier, which hangs in the drawing room of Bute House in Edinburgh, was found abandoned in a street in northern Germany in 1945 by English decorator Felix Harbord.

It was acquired as part of Bute House when the residence was taken over by the National Trust for Scotland in 1999.

But its origins have now been called into question, after a report by the Holocaust research organisation the Simon Wiesenthal Centre suggested it may have been “looted from the British collecting point at Schloss Celle, or it may be an object looted from legitimate German ownership”.

Scottish ministers have now launched an investigation into the chandelier’s roots.

A government spokesperson said: “We will discuss this with the National Trust for Scotland, which owns the property and most of the fittings, including the chandelier, to clarify if information on the provenance of the chandelier is contained in the trust’s archives.”

The National Trust for Scotland said in a statement: “We will pursue this with the Bute House trustees, who have been legally responsible for the supervision of the property since 1966.”