American Airlines has suspended an employee after a video showed an altercation on one of its planes involving crew, several passengers and a crying woman carrying a young child.

An American Airlines employee violently took a stroller from the woman, hitting her with it and just missing her child, Facebook user Surain Adyanthaya said in a post accompanying the video he put on the site on Friday.

Less than two weeks ago, a 69-year-old doctor, David Dao, was hospitalised after Chicago aviation police dragged him from a United Airlines plane sparking international outrage and a public relations nightmare for the carrier.

American Airlines was investigating Friday's incident, which happened on Flight 591 from San Francisco to Dallas before the plane took off, Leslie Scott, an airline spokeswoman said.

The incident started over a dispute as to whether the woman could bring her stroller on the flight, Scott said.

Adyanthaya did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In his video, the woman with the child can be heard asking flight attendants for the stroller. A male passenger then walks towards the front of the plane and demands from the airline crew the name of the employee who took the stroller before he returns to his seat.

Moments later, another American employee, who Scott said was a flight attendant, enters the plane and the male passenger confronts him.

"You do that to me and Itarget="_blank"'>