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 Northern Ireland police released Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams on Sunday and sent a file to the public prosecutor after four days of questioning over his role in a 1972 murder in a case that has rocked the British province.

Police arrested Adams on Wednesday over the abduction and murder of Jean McConville, a killing he said he was "innocent of any part" in. His detention has raised tensions among Northern Ireland's power-sharing government and its fragile peace.

"A 65-year-old man arrested by detectives investigating the abduction and murder of Jean McConville in 1972 on Wednesday 30th April has been released pending a report to the PPS (Public Prosecution Service)," police said in a statement.

Adams' arrest over the killing of McConville is among the most significant in Northern Ireland since a 1998 peace deal ended decades of tit-for-tat killings between Irish Catholic nationalists and mostly Protestant pro-British loyalists.