PARIS (Reuters) - A French court has opened a murder inquiry into the 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, a legal source told Reuters on Tuesday, following claims by his wife that he may have been poisoned.

Arafat died in a Paris military hospital in November 2004, a month after being airlifted, when his health collapsed, from his battered headquarters in Ramallah, where he had been effectively confined by Israel for more than two and a half years.

Last month, Arafat's wife, Suha, asked a court in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre to launch a murder investigation following revelations that a Swiss institute had discovered high levels of the radioactive element polonium-210 on Arafat's clothing.

(Reporting By Nicolas Bertin; Writing by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Louise Ireland)