The flight crew of a Saudi Arabian Airlines plane mistakenly pressed a hijack warning button twice as it approached Manila's airport on Tuesday, causing airport officials to mobilize security forces and isolate the jet after it landed, Philippine officials said.

Police surrounded a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight at Manila airport on Tuesday after reports it was "under threat", with passengers not allowed to disembark, the aviation authority spokesman told AFP.

"A Saudi plane has been isolated at the airport runway," Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines spokesman Eric Apolonio said.

Later on, an airline spokesman told AFP that the alert was a "false alarm".

There was a "false alarm for hijack for Flight 872," the spokesman told AFP in the Saudi capital Riyadh.