German police have arrested two terror suspects on a passenger jet as it prepared for take-off.

Police said the men were suspected of wanting to take part in Islamist attacks and farewell letters had been found.

A police spokesman identified the suspected Islamist militants, on a KLM aircraft about to take off from Cologne airport for Amsterdam, as a 23-year-old Somali and a 24-year-old German born in Somalia's capital Mogadishu.

A KLM spokesman said: "German police authorities removed two passengers from the plane. We don't know the exact details but all the passengers had to get out for a check of all the luggage, and they removed the suspects' luggage."

The flight, KL1804, continued its journey to Amsterdam just over an hour later and has since landed in Amsterdam.

The arrests appear to be unrelated to a search for two suspected Islamist militants which the Federal Crime Office had announced previously.

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