The suspected terrorist arrested in Westminster carrying knives is a one-time humanitarian activist who is now facing questions from police about whether he was about to stage a murderous attack in central London.

Khalid Mohamed Omar Ali, 27, was arrested by armed police on Thursday afternoon yards from the Houses of Parliament and the scene of the previous terrorist attack in March in which five people lost their lives.

Counter-terrorism detectives continued questioning Ali on Friday. He had been under surveillance for weeks by MI5 and the Metropolitan police over concerns he had been lured by violent extremism.

Ali was a schoolboy in inner north London who by the age of 21 had set sail on a ship to take relief supplies to Gaza on a mission that eschewed politics or religion but nonetheless became mired in difficulty and never reached its destination.

Ali was being questioned at Southwark police station in south London, with detectives trying to piece together why he was in Westminster with two knives, what he intended to do with the implements and why. He is understood to have been a “lone actor”.

Ali was born outside of Britain, moved to the UK at a young age and went to school in Tottenham, north London, a multicultural area that has a long history of neglect and where sections of the community mistrust the police and other authorities.

In 2010 Ali joined the Road to Hope convoy taking aid to Gaza, sources have confirmed. He and other volunteers boarded the Strofades IV ship in Libya. The convoy leader, Kieran Turner, said it was apolitical.

Turner said: “The people who were involved with this convoy were the ones who went to really do humanitarian care.

“These were young men who were very keen to do something to help and for a lot of them it was a great introduction – some of them are still trustees on charities.”

The voyage saw a falling out between the captain and those on board, and that part of the journey was aborted, with the vessel ending up in Greece with the humanitarian activists on board complaining of their treatment.

Ali was last registered to an address in Enfield, north London, but is no longer resident there, according to official residence documents.

His arrest followed counter-terrorism investigators tracking him as he traveled through London and armed officers were laying in wait and swooped on him in an area full of high-profile buildings such as the House of Parliament and Downing Street.

He is alleged to have been carrying two knives in a bag that spilled out into the middle of the road as he was grabbed by police and put on the ground.

Concerns about his behaviour were reported to police by at least one member of the Muslim community and led to a joint MI5 and Met police investigation.

Ali was arrested at 2.22pm, police said, “on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon and on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism. Knives have been recovered from him”.

Police also said that they had carried out two searches at addresses in London as part of their inquiries into Ali.

His arrest at junction of Parliament Street and Parliament Square was just yards from where Khalid Masood first drove into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and then used a knife to stab a police officer to death.

Investigators will be examining electronic devices seized during the searches and any computers or smartphones used by Ali to look for evidence of online material viewed and whom he was in contact with.

Britain remains at a severe level of terrorism alert, meaning an attack is highly likely. Ali’s arrest was followed five hours later by arrests in Willesden, north west London.

The Guardian understands investigators believe both operations thwarted terrorist attack plots that they fear may have been imminent. A source said of both had attracted “the very highest level of priority” from police and MI5.

Despite their belief that two attack plans were disrupted within five hours of each other, at least two other suspected jihadist plots were on Friday being monitored and under investigation.

Developments on Thursday were incorporated into a regular review of the alert status, but it was left unchanged.

Met police counter-terrorism units and MI5 have been operating at an intense workload for two years with the rise of Islamic State and its call for attacks on the west, with 13 plots thwarted since 2013.

Met police deputy assistant commissioner Neil Basu, senior national coordinator for counter-terrorism, said: “Activity continues around the clock to identify and stop these threats and we are making arrests on a near daily basis.”

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