The eldest son of the reclusive North Korean leader, Mr Kim Jung-il, is reported to have been detained in Japan after being found with false documents.
Mr Kim Jong-Nam, in his early thirties, was arrested at Tokyo's Narita airport with a forged Dominican Republic passport. He claimed he was a South Korean, bringing his four-year-old son to Tokyo Disneyland. He told officials: "I want to go to the Disneyland." News of the arrest broke yesterday afternoon as a top level European Union delegation finished talks with the North Korean leader, Mr Kim Jung-il. There was no response from the North Koreans to the report of the embarrassing arrest.
According to the Japanese news agency Kyodo, the man was detained on Tuesday. He was accompanied by a boy and two women in their thirties, one thought to be the boy's mother. It is believed they arrived from Singapore on a Japan Airlines flight carrying the false passports.
Commentators last night said all four would be deported to China within days. China is one of North Korea's main allies in the region and one of the few countries in which it has an embassy.
The newly-elected Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Junichiro Koizumi, said the Justice Ministry had notified him of the arrest and the government was working on "confirming the matter". He said Tokyo would "think carefully" before deciding what to do next.
Little is known about Mr Kim Jong-Nam who is proving to be as reclusive as his father, and grandfather, Kim il-Sung, North Korea's founder-dictator.
He is said to be a computer enthusiast and has studied in Switzerland and Russia. He is in charge of overseeing North Korea's information technology policies.
Despite his claim that he was on his way to Disneyland, Japanese public security official suspect he was in the country to look into the latest developments in the field of information technology.
There is only one known photograph of the man in circulation and this was taken 20 years ago, in 1981. In it he is seen staring sullenly at the camera while sitting on a sofa next to his father.
During the visit of the EU delegation to Pyongang this week, efforts by European journalists covering the trip to extract information about the leader's family proved fairly fruitless. However, one of the security personnel told The Irish Times that the leadership would pass to one of Mr Kim Jung-il's children.
"There is an heir," he commented yesterday.