Retired sergeant 'leaked sensitive secrets'

The FBI believes a retired US Air Force sergeant they have arrested on spying charges tried to share sensitive defence secrets with Libya.

Brian Regan was arrested on Thursday at Washington's Dulles International Airport before he could board a flight to Zurich.

His affidavit said Regan was suspected of being the source of a number of classified documents received by an unnamed country, believed to be Libya.

The documents included secret electronic images, a secret CIA intelligence report and a secret document related to a foreign country's satellite capability.

FBI agents were monitoring Regan when he went to work at a National Reconnaissance Office facility in Chantilly, Virginia, earlier on Thursday.

Regan's last assignment with the Air Force had been at the NRO, the builder and operator of US spy satellites, whose very existence was an official secret until 1992.

In July, Regan returned there as a civilian employee of TRW, a government contractor in Fairfax, Virginia, and his security access was reinstated.

According to the affidavit, Regan read a secret document on his computer, taking notes in a small notebook, which he put in his trouser pocket.

The FBI then searched his minivan and found a bag containing encrypted messages and handwritten notes listing addresses and phone numbers for the diplomatic offices of an unidentified country in Switzerland and Austria.

Agents also said they found items in Regan's possession including the small notebook that he had been using in his office, three rubber gloves, a hand-held global positioning system device and a piece of paper in his shoe listing names and addresses in a European country