By James Cusick, Westminster Editor

A cross-party group of backbench MPs is planning to delay the Queen's Speech this week by forcing a debate on what role the speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, played in authorising the police search of the parliamentary offices of the shadow immigration minister, Damian Green.

A delegation of MPs wants to meet with Martin, who is the MP for Glasgow North East, at the Commons to discuss his reasons for apparently allowing police to search Green's Westminster office.

So far, Martin's office has only stated that there was a process to be followed "and it was followed".

However, this bare statement is said to have enraged many MPs, who believe the speaker failed in one of his primary duties, to prevent any attack on parliamentary democracy by the police.

Government and opposition whips may be rendered powerless if MPs on both sides of the House insist on raising a series of points of order inside the main Commons chamber before the process that involves MPs leaving the Commons and walking to the Lords to hear the Queen's Speech.

If a deal on the promise of a future debate is agreed, which prevents disruption of the sovereign's speech, Martin's future will be in serious doubt.

A detailed series of questions has already been put to government ministers by opposition ministers asking about the precise details of the authority the police had to raid Green's Kent home and his parliamentary office.

The shadow home secretary, Dominic Grieve, has co-ordinated the list of questions, which demand answers over the arrest of Green and the timing of when officials and ministers finally learned of the arrest, or knew it was about to happen.

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, denied that ministers had been involved in the arrest in any way. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, said he had "no prior knowledge" of Green's arrest.

If it is confirmed that Martin breached the basic rules of parliamentary privilege by allowing an open police search within the Palace of Westminster, the group of cross-party MPs say they will publicly call for his resignation, arguing he has lost the trust of the House and therefore cannot continue as speaker.

Respect for Martin as the speaker has deteriorated significantly over the last two years, with a whispering campaign already in progress aimed at securing his resignation.

The events surrounding the police search inside the Commons will do little to help his position.

One Labour MP, who asked not to be named, said: "This was the speaker's chance to make history, real history. And he blew it. He should have followed the example of his predecessor, William Lenthall, who in 1642 refused to tell Charles I the whereabouts of five MPs the king was trying to arrest. If Michael had said to the police in his gruffest Glasgow accent to bugger off', he could have kept his job for ever. But he didn't. "

Nine counter-terrorist officers arrested Green at his Ashford home. The MP was held for nine hours by the police. He was finger-printed, and a DNA sample taken before being released on bail. His mobile phone, Blackberry, bank statements, and computers containing private files were seized by police.

The police search and arrest was evidently timed to avoid the Commons being able to immediately discuss or debate it. Green was arrested on Thursday, but parliament broke up late on Wednesday night and will not meet again till the Queen's Speech this week.

The outrage over the arrest is not confined to opposition MPs. The former Labour minister, Dennis MacShane, said the speaker had a duty to "make clear that MPs were entitled to hold sensitive material in the same way as lawyers and doctors."

"To send a squad of counter-terrorist officers to arrest an MP shows the growing police contempt for parliament and democratic politics," he added.

Despite the prime minister and the home secretary saying they knew nothing about the raids, which were in connection with an investigation in leaks of government data at the Home Office, the Tory leader, David Cameron, London mayor Boris Johnson and the speaker, were all given prior warning of the raid.

The former home secretary, Michael Howard, said he would have been "astonished" if he had not been informed of the police operation when he was in office.

The Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, said the raid was "something you expect from a tin-pot dictatorship".