A lawyer for Tom Cruise says he has filed a $US50 million ($A48.66 million) defamation lawsuit against the publishers of Life & Style magazine for articles that said the actor has abandoned his six-year-old daughter Suri.

Bert Fields says the lawsuit was filed on Wednesday in Los Angeles federal court. Fields says Cruise doesn't like to file lawsuits but that the assertion that the actor has abandoned his daughter is a "vicious lie." If Cruise prevails, Fields says his client would give the money to charity.

An email message left for a spokeswoman for Bauer Publishing, which produces Life & Style, was not immediately returned.

Cruise and Suri's mother, Katie Holmes, were divorced earlier this year. They had been married for six years.