An aircraft passenger in custody in America after allegedly trying to ignite explosives concealed in his shoes is British, Scotland Yard said tonight.
US authorities were trying to determine today whether the man suspected of attempting to blow up an American jetliner over the Atlantic, was acting alone or connected to a terror network, a US senator said.
Senator Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the US Senate Intelligence Committee, told the CBS program Face the Nation that he had been briefed by the FBI and that preliminary information indicated the man had explosives in his shoes when he was overpowered yesterday by fellow passengers on American Airlines Flight 63.
The Boeing 767 carrying 185 passengers and 12 crew from Paris to Miami was diverted to Boston's Logan International Airport under the escort of two US Air Force fighter jets after the struggle involving several passengers and crew.
"The message here is as this unfolds that terrorists are going to hit us again, I've said that. Is it part of a widespread deal or was this guy acting alone, we don't know yet," Senator Shelby said. "What I believe is now, although we've made a lot of headway since September 11th as far as air safety, we've got a long way to go."
Despite early skepticism that explosives were involved, Senator Shelby said the FBI was taking the incident very seriously.
"It would be my judgment from what I've observed that this man was trying to blow himself up and blow the plane up and we are very fortunate it didn't happen," he said.
A White House spokesman said US President George W. Bush was monitoring the situation.
"He is being briefed by appropriate officials," said spokesman Mr Scott Stanzel. President Bush is with his family members at the Camp David presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains outside Washington.
Federal officials said the man appeared to be traveling on a false British passport bearing the name Richard Reid that was issued in Belgium three weeks ago. The suspect was being held in Boston and faced an initial charge of interfering with a flight crew, an FBI spokeswoman said.
Mr Tom Kinton, director of aviation at Logan, said the flight attendants and other passengers who tackled the man prevented something very serious from occurring.
Mr Kinton said a flight attendant had approached the passenger when he lit a match in midflight.
"The flight attendants became alerted to the smell of sulfur ... and immediately took action when they saw what this individual was attempting to do and literally tackled the individual and got into a wrestling match in an attempt to stop this action", Mr Kinton said.
"The flight attendants were hurt during this, and yelled for help from other passengers and received that help from other passengers on board the aircraft", he said.
Mr Kinton said the man had been carrying enough improvised explosives to do damage.
"At this time it appears that the shoes did contain detcord (detonation cord) and some form of improvised explosives, C4 in nature ... we can't be 100 per cent certain of that, the shoes are being analyzed by the FBI", he said. C4 is a powerful explosive used by the military.