LONDON — Vijay Mallya, the Indian tycoon who called himself the King of Good Times, was arrested in London on Tuesday, having fled his home country more than a year ago under an avalanche of unpaid bills and allegations of fraud.

India canceled Mr. Mallya’s passport in April 2016, after a court in Mumbai issued a warrant for his arrest. India’s Foreign Minstry has said it will ask Britain to deport him.

On Tuesday, London’s Metropolitan Police said its extradition unit had arrested Mr. Mallya “on behalf of the Indian authorities in relation to accusations of fraud.” Mr. Mallya was scheduled to appear at a London court on Tuesday, the police said in a statement.

Mr. Mallya dismissed the news as “media hype,” but confirmed on Twitter that an extradition hearing began on Tuesday.

He has previously disputed accusations that he fled India to avoid bad debts, saying on Twitter that he travels “to and from India frequently. I did not flee from India and neither am I an absconder. Rubbish.”

Often likened to the British entrepreneur Richard Branson, Mr. Mallya owns the United Breweries Group, which makes Kingfisher beer and distributes a wide variety of products, including alcohol, chemicals and fertilizer. He has a stake in India’s only Formula One auto racing team, Force India, and he established an airline in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

The airline, also called Kingfisher, had large ambitions, expanding internationally and adding a luxurious business class. But it struggled in a competitive domestic market and had a ragtag collection of aging and inefficient planes. By 2012, after persuading lenders to restructure its debt, it ceased operations in the face of high fuel prices and a global slowdown.

Kingfisher Airlines owed more than $1 billion in loans, as well as back pay to former employees and other bills. Because Mr. Mallya himself, and United Breweries Group, had backed some of the loans, creditors chased them for repayment.

As the dispute went through the courts, banks tried to seize Mr. Mallya’s assets, and Indian authorities raided his homes and offices in Mumbai, Bangalore and Goa in 2015.