SNP MP Michelle Thomson says email was 'harvested' by Ashley Madison hackers

An SNP MP whose email address was among the millions released in a data hack on adultery website Ashley Madison has said it was "harvested" by hackers.

Michelle Thomson, who represents the Edinburgh West constituency, said she has never had any contact with the site.

The online dating agency, which specialises in affairs, was hacked last month by a group calling itself The Impact Team.

The hackers said it would publish what they claimed was a database of 37 million members and the information has reportedly been posted on the Dark Web, described as the ''underground of the internet'' or the ''internet black market''.

Avid Life Media (ALM), which runs Ashley Madison, has branded the hackers as criminals and said it is investigating the latest claims ''to determine the validity of any information posted online''.

Ms Thomson said: "Along with potentially millions of others, an out-of-use email address seems to have been harvested by hackers.

"I am not aware of or in contact with either Avid Life or Ashley Madison and look forward to finding out more about what has actually happened.

"However, having a personal email address linked to an account doesn't mean that person is really a user of Ashley Madison. Users are able to sign up to the site without responding to an email verification, meaning anyone's email address could have been used to create an account."