China has moved quickly to announce the start of a formal criminal probe into disgraced former senior politician Bo Xilai, hours after expelling him from the largely rubber stamp parliament and so removing his immunity from prosecution.

The announcements on Friday (local time) pave the way for Mr Bo, once a contender for top leadership in the world's second largest economy, to face trial and likely a long jail sentence on accusations of corruption and abuse of power.

A brief report by the state-run Xinhua news agency said state prosecutors had "decided to put Bo Xilai under investigation for alleged criminal offences".

It added that they had "imposed coercive measures on him in accordance with the law", likely a reference that he was now officially in detention.

Mr Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, and his former police chief, Wang Lijun, have both been jailed over a scandal that stems from the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood while Mr Bo was Communist Party chief of the south-western city of Chongqing.

The government last month accused Mr Bo of corruption and of bending the law to hush up the murder.