Police arrested International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Saturday aboard a flight departing for Paris, on suspicion of an alleged sexual assault against a hotel maid, The New York Times reported.
The arrest took place on an Air France flight 10 minutes before takeoff from New York, according to a spokesman for John F Kennedy International Airport, dpa reported.
Authorities said that Strauss-Kahn was accused of sexual assault against a maid earlier Saturday at the Sofitel New York, a hotel on the city's landmark Times Square.
Strauss-Kahn was in the custody of New York Police Department detectives late Saturday in Manhattan.
Strauss-Kahn, a French lawyer and politician, has headed the Washington-based IMF since 2007. The agency is an emergency lender for governments in fiscal or currency crises.