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BRISBANE - A hospital registrar being questioned by police in Brisbane in connection with the failed UK terrorist plot is an Indian national working under a 457 visa, Prime Minister John Howard said.
"The man has been taken into custody and questioning is underway," Mr Howard said.
"There is a second person who is currently assisting the police with their inquiries and the identity of that second person arose from the discussion that occurred with the first person taken into custody."
The 457 visa programme allows migrant workers to come to Australia for temporary employment when vacancies cannot be filled locally.
The 27-year-old man was taken into custody at Brisbane International Airport by Queensland and Federal Police at 11pm AEST time yesterday, as he tried to leave on an international flight.
He worked as a junior doctor at Gold Coast Hospital in Southport.
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie said the man was arrested as a result of information provided by British authorities. No charges have yet been laid.
"We understand that the man that had been detained at the airport last night had some connection to the incidents in the UK. However, it's not appropriate to provide . . . any specific, further information," Mr Beattie said.
The premier told a news conference the doctor had been working at the hospital since September last year after responding to an advertisement in the British Medical Journal.
He had previously been working in Liverpool, after training in India, and had "excellent references".
Mr Beattie said a second Queensland doctor - who was also recruited from Liverpool - was being spoken to, but he stressed there was no information linking him to the UK plot.
"There is no suggestion of anything in relation to the second doctor. We do not know of any link the second doctor may have had with anyone," he said.
"It's really important that everyone understands that while we have recruited overseas doctors, 99.9 per cent of them are good citizens."
Mr Beattie said there was no reason to believe there was any threat to patient safety at the hospital.
Two doctors are also among the seven people being held in Britain after two car bombs were found in London and a jeep was driven into Glasgow Airport, in what police said were linked acts of terrorism.
Mr Howard reiterated the government had no information to suggest a terrorist attack on Australia was imminent.
"I do want to take this opportunity of assuring the Australian public that there has been no change to our security position, no change at all," he said.
"We have no information suggesting that there is now a greater likelihood of any terrorist incident in Australia than there was late last week."
But he warned Australians not to drop their guard, as the incidents in London and Glasgow demonstrated a terrorist strike remained a possibility.
"We should not be complacent; there are people in our midst who would do us harm and evil if they had the opportunity of doing so," he said.
Mr Howard said he intended to speak to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown later this week.
British arrests
One of the doctors arrested in Britain, named by police sources as Bilal Abdulla, trained and qualified in Iraq in 2004, and the other, Mohammed Asha, qualified in Jordan the same year. Asha's wife is among the seven suspects being held, police said.
Those arrested are linked to a plot to detonate two car bombs loaded with fuel, gas canisters and nails in London in the early hours of Friday, and an attack on Glasgow airport in Scotland on Saturday using a fuel-laden Jeep Cherokee.
Britain has seen a marked increase in terrorism-related attacks since the September 11 strikes on the United States and since it joined US forces in invading Iraq in 2003.
However, previous assaults, including an attack on London's transport system in July 2005 which killed 52 people, have tended to involve radicalised, British-born Muslims, not educated attackers from overseas, security experts say.
In other developments in the fast-moving investigation into the plot, the BBC said that police had carried out two controlled explosions at a mosque in the Scottish city of Glasgow early today. No other details were immediately available.
On Monday, police cordoned off a hospital in Paisley, a town just outside Glasgow, and carried out several controlled detonations.
The hospital, the Royal Alexandra, is where Abdulla worked, staff said, and where he is also believed to be treated for severe burns after taking part in the attack on Glasgow airport, when his vehicle was turned into a fireball.
Fearing further attacks, police banned cars and other vehicles from directly approaching airports and security measures were stepped up across the country as authorities kept the threat level at "critical", the highest rating.
A police source said the investigation was going very well and they expected to make more arrests. The source said the plot bore "all the hallmarks" of al Qaeda and there had been no warning of Saturday's attack on Glasgow airport.
The series of foiled and actual attacks pose a test for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a Scotsman who replaced Tony Blair only last week and who has come under pressure from some quarters to change policy on Iraq and withdraw British troops.
Blair was known for an aggressive stance on security and a foreign policy which strongly supported the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq. The bombers who struck London in 2005 said in videos they were punishing Britain for Blair's policies.
As well as the arrests of Abdulla, Asha and his wife, two more men, aged 25 and 28 and also believed not to be from Britain, were detained in Paisley late on Sunday. The seventh suspect was seized in Liverpool earlier on Sunday.
A British security source said it was premature to say whether all those arrested were foreigners. "That's still an area that's being looked at."
Home Secretary (interior minister) Jacqui Smith said Britain was facing a "serious and sustained threat of terrorism" and urged the public to remain alert. Addressing parliament on Monday, she praised the security services for their quick work in rounding up suspects but said a threat remained.
In Amman, Jordan, the father of Mohammed Asha described his son as a good Muslim, not a fanatic, and expressed incredulity that he could be involved in an al Qaeda-style bomb plot.
"I am sure Mohammed does not have any links of this nature because his history in Jordan and since he was a kid does not include any kind of activity of this nature," he told Reuters.
He said Mohammed and his wife were happy with their lives in Britain and had had a son here about 18 months ago.
Police and ministers said protective security measures would be stepped up across Britain, particularly at transport hubs.
Dave Bryon, an aviation consultant and former director of British airline bmibaby, said attacks on airports posed a less controllable security threat than those targeting flights.
"When it's a landside incident you actually have very limited control, because not only have you got travellers, but you have people meeting and greeting, people dropping off ... and the taxi drivers and chauffeurs," he said.
- REUTERS / AAP / NZHERALD STAFF
