Federal prosecutors are investigating whether New York’s disgraced governor, Eliot Spitzer, used campaign funds in connection with his meetings with prostitutes, including payments for hotels or ground transportation, three people with knowledge of the investigation said.

Prosecutors have asked the governor’s lawyers about the travel arrangements for three trips, including his February 13 rendezvous with a prostitute at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan has also asked about the governor’s use of car services during trips to Washington.

The governor’s lawyers have begun consulting with a campaign finance expert who has long worked for Spitzer’s political organisation to see whether campaign money was spent on the trips, including some as recently as last month, a person briefed on the investigation said.

The governor, in the two brief statements he made this week as his political career ended, has not directly addressed the allegations concerning his use of prostitutes. But he has told his aides in recent days that he used prostitutes only in the last eight months and never spent campaign or public money in that regard, according to several of the aides. He reaffirmed that position to his lawyer during a meeting at his Manhattan apartment on Tuesday, others present said.

If campaign money was involved, it would expand the scope of a criminal inquiry, because it is illegal to use campaign money for personal expenses. Spitzer, a Democrat, has championed a campaign finance reform proposal for much of his tenure and often excoriated Republicans, saying their fund-raising practices were responsible for the “haze and smog surrounding the capital.”

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