A European arrest warrant has been issued by a Spanish judge for ousted Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, his lawyer says.
Warrants have also been issued for four other Catalonian ex-ministers who are also in Belgium, Paul Bekaert told Belgian television statoin VRT NWS.
Bekaert gave no further details of the warrant, which Belgian prosecutors must now evaluate, but indicated that Puigdemont would appeal against any Belgian decision to extradite him to Spain.
There was no immediate confirmation of the warrants from Spain. Earlier reports in Spanish media said Judge Carmen Lamela had prepared the warrants but had not yet officially dispatched them.
All five Catalonian lawmakers have been summoned to a hearing at Madrid's National Court, facing charges of rebellion, sedition and misappropriation of public funds. The charges carry sentences of up to 30 years in prison.
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The court has already ordered pre-trial detention without bail for eight other former members of the regional government who did testify in court on Thursday, including ex-vice president of the Catalan regional government Oriol Junqueras.
A ninth former member of the regional government, Santi Vila, was given bail of $US58,300 ($A81,620).
In a pre-recorded speech broadcast on Catalonian television channel TV3, Puigdemont demanded that the eight be released and called for peaceful resistance against the "long and terrible oppression which awaits us."
"This is a huge mistake, a grave attack on democracy," he added, calling himself Catalonia's "legitimate" president. He has previously said he will not return to Spain unless he is guaranteed a fair trial.
Puigdemont and his fellow ex-ministers - Antoni Comin (minister of health), Meritxell Serret (agriculture), Clara Ponsati (education) and Lluis Puig (culture) - could be immediately detained by Belgian authorities once prosecutors there approve the paperwork.
If they raise no legal objections, they could be extradited within days, but Belgium has up to 60 days to deliver the suspects back to Spain.
Even neutral observers were critical of the judge's Thursday moves, with hundreds of people taking to the streets of Barcelona to denounce the imprisonment of the Catalonian lawmakers.
Unions have called protest strikes in the coming days and the anti-independence mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, told reporters the judge's order spoke of a "lust for revenge" and called on Catalonians to resist the "authoritarianism" of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government.
The Spanish central government dismissed Puigdemont's secessionist regional leadership hours after the Catalan parliament in Barcelona voted to proclaim an independent republic on October 27.
