Alex Salmond has been warned by Ken Clarke against "personalising" the Chilcot Report as he led an SNP bid to trigger a parliamentary investigation into whether Tony Blair misled the Commons in the run-up to the Iraq war.

The former Scottish first minister told MPs he believed the public was "grievously misled into that disastrous conflict" by the former prime minister.

Mr Salmond, backed by a selection of MPs from seven parties, is calling for the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee to probe any differences between Mr Blair's public statements in the lead-up to the invasion and private correspondence with then US president George Bush revealed by the Chilcot inquiry.

But Mr Clarke, the Tory former chancellor, suggested a focus on Mr Blair risked relegating the important issue of ensuring that such a "catastrophic foreign policy decision" is not repeated.

Intervening on Mr Salmond, he said: "As you are aware I agree with you about your descriptions of the catastrophic nature of the invasion of Iraq and I agree with you that the former prime minister has a lot to answer for and no doubt will continue to do so although he was cleared by Chilcot of deliberate misbehaviour.

"But do you not accept that if we just turn these post-Chilcot debates into an attempt to pursue and hound Tony Blair the whole thing just turns into a party political argument with Labour members of Parliament trying to defend the position of their government?

"Are you going in due course... to address the most important matter of how do we ensure that in future the system of cabinet government, the system of handling intelligence, the system of taking on board defence advice and the proper communication of that to all members of the cabinet and proper communication to Parliament cannot be repeated so that we don't have another catastrophic foreign policy decision in future.

"Personalising it rather, if we're not careful, loses the point of are we satisfied that everything possible is being done to make sure it can't happen again?"

But Mr Salmond said the Chilcot Report concluded that "this was very much a personal campaign by the prime minister" as he said parliamentary accountability could act as a barrier to any repeat.

He said: "There are committees of this House who have been examining the conduct of the processes of government and if you read the very committee we intend to refer the question of parliamentary accountability to, the minutes of the meeting they had with the cabinet secretary I don't think you will find much reassurance that there has been a tremendous advance in the process of government and the overwhelming impression is that a headstrong prime minister could still create a situation where sofa government drove a country into an illegal war.

"I suggest that parliamentary accountability, that an examination of statements made to Parliament and public against the facts as we now know them, would be a valuable additional sanction and tool in restraining future prime ministers from any such course of events."

The Democratic Unionist Party's Westminster leader Nigel Dodds echoed a similar sentiment to Mr Clarke.

He said: "I don't for one minute doubt the sincerity of many members who have signed this motion and their desire to get to the truth but aren't you in real danger of really turning, to follow on from Mr Clarke, what is a very, very important issue into a party political issue, the SNP trying to attack the Labour Party rather than making this an issue of real national concern, drawing the lessons that need to be learned and that is one of the reasons why we did not sign up to your motion."

Mr Salmond's opposition day motion notes the "contrast between private correspondence to the United States government and public statements to Parliament and people and also in the presentation of intelligence information".

It calls on the parliamentary committee to "conduct a further specific examination of this contrast in public and private policy and of the presentation of intelligence" and to recommend any further action.

The Chilcot Report found that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein posed ''no imminent threat'' at the time of the invasion of his country in 2003, and the war was started on the basis of ''flawed'' intelligence.

Its publication led to calls for the prosecution of Mr Blair, but the former PM insisted that, while he felt sorrow for those whose loved ones died, he stood by his decision to commit Britain to the US-led military action.