Cologne airport alert: Man arrested after alarm grounds flights and sees terminal evacuated

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Police have arrested a man on suspicion of entering a secure area at Cologne airport, sparking a security alert which prompted the evacuation of a terminal and the suspension of flights.

Terminal 1 at Cologne Bonn Airport was cleared of passengers after a "suspicious person" reportedly passed through a passcode-protected door next to a supermarket.

A police spokeswoman told the Germany news agency DPA all flights had been stopped until the security alert could be resolved.

But a statement from the airport later said that while five flights had been held on the tarmac, planes continued to take off and land at Terminal 2.

The main terminal was evacuated, police said, so that all those who had passed through security could be checked again.

And speaking to the German edition of The Local, an airport spokeswoman said: "A person illegally entered the secure area. Federal police are evacuating Terminal 1, and all flights from that terminal have been stopped."

German media desribed the person who sparked the alert as a man around 1.8 metres (5ft 11in) tall wearing red trousers.

The departures board at Cologne showed delays, and the head of communiations at Deutsche Telekom, Philipp Schindera, tweeted that his plane was stuck on the tarmac.

Security has been a concern at Cologne Bonn Airport recently, most notably when a terminal was evacuated because a woman had walked through security without being checked.

It later emerged that the woman had been a plain-clothes police officer who had pushed her way through without submitting to security checks.