Brazil’s Supreme Court has ordered the arrest of former President Jair Bolsonaro over claims he was planning to escape before starting his 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt.

Police took Brazil’s convicted former president Jair Bolsonaro into custody early on Saturday after a supreme court judge said he was planning to escape from house arrest, days before the rightwinger was expected to start serving a 27-year jail sentence.

Bolsonaro was arrested after he broke his ankle monitor. This happened right after his son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, called for a vigil outside the former president’s house. The supreme court justice, Alexandre de Moraes, said Bolsonaro’s escape would have been “facilitated by the confusion caused by the demonstration called by his son”.

The arrest came days before the former president was expected to be ordered to begin a 27-year prison sentence for staging a failed coup.

A panel of four Supreme Court judges unanimously upheld on Monday a decision to incarcerate Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro.

President Donald Trump was asked outside the White House on Saturday about the arrest of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, but said that was the first he was hearing of it.

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was detained in Brasilia because of a possible "attempted escape" to an embassy before he was to begin his prison sentence.