Mexican authorities launched the process on Sunday to extradite drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States, as they also sought to question US actor Sean Penn over their clandestine meeting.

The extradition bid marks a reversal from President Enrique Pena Nieto's refusal to send Guzman across the border before his July escape from a maximum-security prison.

The attorney general's office said in a statement that Interpol Mexico agents went to Guzman's prison near Mexico City to execute two arrest warrants for his extradition, two days after he was captured in a deadly military raid.