HEBRON - A high-ranking Israeli official was denied a seat Friday on a Comair flight over a procedural matter, not because of his nationality, officials with the Erlanger-based airline said Sunday.

        Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior was denied a seat from Cincinnati to Toronto, Comair spokeswoman Meghan Glynn confirmed, but she would not offer any more specifics about the incident, other than it had to do with following proper procedures.

        “We do not discuss security matters in detail,” Ms. Glynn said. She declined to say which procedures had not been followed.

        Mr. Melchior, who was allowed to board a subsequent Comair flight and is now back in Israel, complained about the incident Sunday on Israeli radio.

        He said that he had been escorted by State Department officials, and that he had been allowed to board, waited for an hour, and then was told he could not fly after the entire plane was evacuated by the pilot for a security risk.

        “The security officials and the company all put pressure on him (the pilot), and there were negotiations,” Mr. Melchior told the Israeli station. “But the pilot is sovereign on his aircraft, and he is empowered to make such a decision, and he did it in spite of all the pressure from the company and security.”

        He also said that the Israeli government has taken up the issue with the State Department in Washington.

        Ms. Glynn would not release the name of the pilot involved.

        The Israeli station reported that this was the third time that an Israeli official had been

        turned away by a U.S. airline due to a perceived security risk. In at least one of those cases, however, the pilot in question said that he worried that high-ranking Israeli officials were potential targets for terrorists.

        “This singling out of Israeli diplomats ... and removing them from a plane in such a manner, and the very fact that we are Israelis (is deemed) to pose a security risk, is intolerable,” Mr. Melchior told the radio station.

        The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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