The adopted son of the Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, has been charged with sexually assaulting an 18-year-old girl reports the Guardian.

Michel Charles Chrétien was arrested and charged on Friday after the teenager told her mother about the alleged attack.

Chrétien, 33, has been accused, and convicted, of previous assaults, some sexual. He began a three year sentence in 1995 after been convicted of sexual assault, sodomy and illegal confinement against a 27-year-old woman.

Chrétien's birth mother, who he has lived with for a number of years, told friends she had seen the impact of adoptions on Indian children, who were adopted by white parents, and had counselled them for drinking problems.

She went on to say that, in the back of her mind, she always wondered if some day her lost son would show up at the detox centre.