Joseph Muscat's claims he was tipped off by a police search on his home are an attempt to divert attention, Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech has said.

The former prime minister said he was told by someone from within the PN that one of its MPs, Jason Azzopardi, was telling people about the planned search.

Asked about this on Thursday, Grech said it was "not the story" and was a diversion tactic by the ex Labour leader. 

"If there is to be any sort of investigation, then this should be done by the police," he said.

"We are in a horrible and, dare I say, dangerous state where we need political parties, politicians, or civil society to ask the police to investigate.

"But this is not the story here. The story is that we have an ex-prime minister whose house was searched. And we also have Prime Minister Robert Abela who is clearly worried and not at all focused on the problems this country is currently facing," Grech said. 

Muscat’s Burmarrad home was searched by the police on Wednesday morning as part of a corruption probe into the Vitals Global Healthcare (VGH) hospitals deal.

Financial crime investigators entered his house at around 7am and spent at least three hours on the premises, seizing the former prime minister's mobile phone, along with those of his wife Michelle and their two daughters.

He later invited Times of Malta to his house to give comments, saying he was only "half surprised" about the search and the "needless theatrics" were possibly designed to "humiliate" him.

Earlier on Thursday, Abela refused to say if he knew of plans to search his predecessor's home.