Chris Huhne says that mistakenly tweeting a message meant for a member of staff was a "fairly marginal mistake".
The Energy Secretary accidentally published a message that read "from someone else fine but I do not want my fingerprints on the story. C".
It was quickly deleted but screengrabs swiftly circulated on Twitter fuelling speculation about which article Mr Huhne may have been referring to.
The Guardian has run a story on its website that refers to the Liberal Democrat's Eastleigh constituency and local newspaper.
It suggests that the section of Home Secretary Theresa May's conference speech, which sparked a public spat with colleague Ken Clarke over claims that an illegal immigrant dodged deportation because he had a pet cat, appeared to have been lifted from an address made by Ukip leader Nigel Farage.
In July he told an audience at Eastleigh Railway Institute a court decided a man "should not be deported because - and I really am not making this up - he had a pet cat", the newspaper reported.
Mr Huhne told the BBC that tweeting a private message to a member of staff was a "fairly marginal" mistake.
He added: "To be honest I don't use a lot of Twitter. It was supposed to be a private message to a member of staff about a local story."