Asked about the US evacuating aircraft from RAF Mildenhall, Education Secretary Lucy Powell told BBC Breakfast she could not comment on ongoing operational matters.
She added that “we take the security and safety of our bases incredibly seriously” and “we will always act on security intelligence when we need to.”
A US Air Force spokesperson said its aircraft “rotate between installations and operating locations for a variety of reasons including training and real world requirements”.
“US military aircraft are hosted in accordance with access, basing, and overflight agreements with our allies and partners. Due to operations security, we will not provide further information on movement of assets,” the spokesperson added.
Former UK National Security Adviser Lord Ricketts told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are talking about an airbase which houses these large tanker aircraft. Of course, they are large targets, an airbase has a long perimeter, so they are inevitably vulnerable.”
He added: “Nobody knows at this stage what this information was. I suspect part of it is an abundance of caution.”
Speaking before reports emerged of the flights leaving RAF Mildenhall, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked on Monday about Iranian threats against American diplomats overseas.
“We’ve addressed it by moving people away from the threat,” he said, adding: “Obviously, we’re always worried about the safety and security of our personnel and their families overseas. And so, when we see anything that could pose a potential threat beyond a certain threshold, we’re going to address it.”
Monday’s departures from Mildenhall follow a security incident at RAF Fairford, a US-operated airbase in Gloucestershire.
A major incident was declared after three suspicious vans were seen near that base in September. It later emerged that the US had pulled its bombers out of the base and returned them to America.
Two British nationals appeared in court in October in connection with an alleged Iran-linked plot. Eight men have been arrested as part of the counter-terror police investigation.
