A member of a notorious British crime family has been arrested in Amsterdam and is now awaiting deportation along with his wife, British media report.

Patrick Adams, 59, was detained alongside his 55-year-old wife Constance in connection with an attempted murder in Islington in 2013, when a man was shot in the chest as he sat in his car, the Daily Mail reports.

A British police spokesman told the paper the pair had been arrested by the Dutch authorities on Friday under a European arrest warrant. They were thought to be either in Spain or the Netherlands.

Dutch police were initially unable to confirm the arrest and it was not clear where the couple were picked up, the Telegraaf says.

However, the Daily Mail said the couple were walking down the Spuistraat in the city centre when they were spotted by a police officer looking out of a window in the  Nieuwezijdsvoorburgwal police headquarters.

The Netherlands is a popular place for British criminals to hide out and last year British police launched a publicity campaign in an effort to track down eight known criminals thought to be living in the country.

In 2013,  20 fugitives were captured in the Netherlands and taken back to Britain to face prosecution.