  We study CP violation in the lepton sector in extended models with
right-handed neutrinos, without and with left-right symmetry, and with
arbitrary mass terms. We find the conditions which must be satisfied by the
neutrino and charged lepton mass matrices for CP conservation. These
constraints, which are independent of the choice of weak basis, are proven to
be also sufficient in simple cases. This invariant formulation makes apparent
the necessary requirements for CP violation, as well as the size of CP
violating effects. As an example, we show that CP violation can be much larger
in left-right symmetric models than in models with only additional right-handed
neutrinos, {\it i.e.}, without right-handed currents.
