Six French planes were cancelled at Christmas

Concerns over six passengers, including the unnamed man, led to the halting of six flights between Paris and Los Angeles at Christmas.

But France has said that the fears were in fact groundless.

Reports claimed that one of the US-identified "suspects" was in fact a child and another was a Welsh insurance salesman.

Negative

"A check was carried out in each case and in each case it turned out to be negative," a spokesman for the Interior Minister told AFP.

"The FBI worked with family names and some family names sound alike."

"The difficulty is compounded when you have no first name or date of birth," he said.

France has accused the FBI of making mistakes over identifying "suspicious" names on passenger lists.

A report in Friday's edition of the Wall Street Journal said a child was among the passengers singled out, because its name was similar to that of a wanted Tunisian.

The other "suspects" turned out to be an elderly Chinese ex-restaurateur, a Welsh insurance salesman and three French nationals, the paper alleged.

French news agency AFP quoted an unnamed FBI official as confirming that it was a case of mistaken identity.

"Sometimes, it's not until you physically ID a person you find out it is not the person," the official was quoted as saying.

The agency told the BBC it had no comment and had not spoken to AFP.

Strict security measures are in operation at French airports amid international fears of an increased terror threat.