France's Interior Ministry said today it had no evidence so far that a would-be bomber tried to board Paris-Los Angeles flight last month but said it was continuing to investigate tip-offs supplied by Washington.
The security scare was sparked by warnings from US officials that forced a string of flight cancellations and delays to US-bound flights in December.
Yesterday, a judicial source said France's DST domestic security service was looking for an Afghan listed in the United States as a terrorist and suspected of preparing an attack against a cancelled December 24th Paris-Los Angeles flight.
French Justice Minister, Mr Dominique Perben, confirmed in a radio interview the same day that the authorities were hunting someone, but declined to elaborate.
However, the Interior Ministry spokeswoman today said none of 10 names supplied to Paris by the US authorities had led to a breakthrough.
Her comments follow Tuesday's report by the US television channel ABC that a passenger who failed to show up for the Christmas Eve flight was suspected of links to the militant al-Qaeda network and might have a small bomb to attack planes.
A French judicial source named the suspect as Mr Abdu Hai. The source said his name did not appear on French files of suspects and that a formal anti-terrorist inquiry had not been launched for now.
The Interior Ministry spokeswoman said the US-supplied list comprised names mostly spelt phonetically and that the checks and identification process was difficult.