The United States denied on Saturday claims by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro that he was briefly detained at a New York airport, but it said it has apologized to the minister for the "regrettable incident."

Maduro said earlier he was detained for more than 90 minutes in a room at John F. Kennedy International Airport and his travel documents had been taken away.

"There's no evidence to support any of this," local media quoted U.S. Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke as saying.

"There's no evidence to support the claim that his travel documents were taken away, there's no evidence to support the claim that he was assaulted and there's no evidence to support the claim that he was somehow arrested or taken into custody," he said.

Maduro was simply asked to go through a routine, secondary security screening, the U.S. official said.

However, U.S. acting State Department spokesman Tom Casey said later: "We can confirm that a regrettable incident occurred at John F. Kennedy airport for which the U.S. government has apologized to Foreign Minister Maduro and the government of Venezuela."

Casey did not elaborate on what prompted the incident.

U.S.-Venezuelan relations have gone downhill since Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela seven years ago.

In early February, Washington ordered a Venezuelan diplomat to be expelled in retaliation for Caracas's move to kick a U.S. naval attache out of the country on espionage charges.

Source: Xinhua