Several employees of Iraq's Interior Ministry have been arrested following allegations that they intended to restore Saddam Hussein's banned Baath party.

An Iraqi security officials told the Associated Press on Thursday that more than 20 people have been taken into custody over the last five days.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj.-Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf confirmed the arrests, which were mostly made in the ministry's traffic department, but dismissed suggestions the employees were planning a coup.

Those held in custody are mostly low-level ministry employees, but a brigadier general with the ministry's traffic police is also being held in connection with the investigation, said an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The investigation is continuing and more arrests are possible, the official said.

Some Iraqi politicians also expressed doubt that the plotters were actively trying to overthrow the government.

"I think talking about a coup is an exaggeration," Abbas al-Bayati, a senior lawmaker of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, the largest Shia party, told Al-Arabiya television.

He described those arrested as "a semi-organized group" but said the fact that they were trying to restore the Baath party pointed to shortcomings in Iraqi security in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Hadi al-Amiri, the head of the Iraqi parliament's security committee, told Associated Press Television news that "reports speaking about a coup attempt are baseless. In fact, coups are usually carried out by the army and not by police."

Mahmoud Othman, a senior Kurdish bloc lawmaker, said he hoped "the move against those arrested is not politically motivated or aims at electoral gains."

The employees are accused of allegedly trying to recruit people to restore the party, the official said.

The Baath party ruled Iraq for 35 years until Saddam's regime was ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The party and any group that uses its symbols and ideology "regardless of the name that it adopts" was then banned.

In the country of about 24 million, about 1.5 million Iraqis were members of Saddam's party.

With files from the Associated Press