London, Jan 9 (IANS) Three British passengers aboard a Dubai-bound flight were arrested for allegedly threatening to blow up the aircraft while it was ready for take-off from Heathrow airport here, police said Saturday.

Police boarded the Emirates flight and arrested the passengers, understood to be English, after a verbal threat was made to blow up the plane as it taxied along the runway, said Cameron McLean a passenger on the Boeing 777.

Three men, aged 58, 48 and 36, have been arrested on suspicion of making a bomb threat, Sky News reported quoting metropolitan police.

"Police just swarmed the guy and rushed him out. I think he was a white male. There was another one but I didn't see him," McLean was quoted as saying.

He said that one man was taken out in handcuffs after which sniffer dogs were brought to check along the aisles and in the overhead lockers. A police officer said: "We have not found anything."

Initial reports had suggested that the threat was not serious, and that the alert could have been raised after a comment from a drunken passenger. The other passengers were held on the aircraft for at least four hours after the incident.

The men had been drinking and may have made the comments in jest, but aviation experts believe that the crew had acted prudently in the circumstances, the report said.

The incident comes amid heightened security screenings at airports across the world in the wake of the failed Christmas Day attempt to explode a Detroit-bound flight by 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a former London student.