Anti-terrorist police took the man away from the jet at Ankara airport, the Anatolia news agency said.

News reports said the man had wanted the plane to go to Iran.

The Pegasus airline Boeing 737-800 carrying 174 passengers and six crew was flying between Istanbul and the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey when it was taken over, the reports said.

The hijacker was a Turk named Mehmet Gokcingol aged about 40, a transport ministry official, Ibrahim Sahin, was quoted as saying by Turkish media.