The man, identified as Abdirahman Ali Gaal, was removed from an Aeromexico flight en route from Paris to Mexico City. (CBC)

Details about why a man was pulled off a flight from Paris to Mexico City will be revealed during a hearing in Montreal on Wednesday, Canadian officials said on Monday.

The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada identified the man as Abdirahman Ali Gaal but would not provide his age or nationality, citing privacy concerns.

Ali Gaal was removed from an Aeromexico flight at Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport Sunday afternoon after U.S. officials denied the flight entry into U.S. air space because they said a man on board was the subject of an outstanding warrant.

Canadian officials have said Ali Gaal's name appears on a U.S. no-fly list, a database of individuals not allowed to fly in the U.S. or though its air space, but American officials would not confirm that.

Man did not resist arrest

Passengers coming off the plane told The Associated Press that six Canadian police officers had boarded in Montreal, handcuffed the man and led him off the aircraft. They said the man did not resist.

"He was calm as if he knew what was going to happen," said Mauricio Oliver, a 36-year-old Mexican passenger. "They handcuffed him, and they took him."

Oliver said a flight attendant told him the man was from Somalia, but other passengers gave conflicting information about his nationality.

Mexican Senator Javier Castellon said he was seated two rows behind the passenger who was arrested. He said the police approached a bearded man seated in seat 23H who gave a wry smile and allowed himself to be handcuffed without resistance.

"Some people started to cry," Castellon said in an interview with The Associated Press. "There was a little bit of panic, but the whole police operation lasted only a minute."

Another Mexican politician, Senator Francisco Javier Castellon, told CBC News that it was only after Gaal was detained that the pilot told passengers that Gaal was on a North American no-fly list.

Also of interest to Canadian authorities

When the plane landed around 2:30 p.m. ET, Canadian border services agents and RCMP officers boarded the plane and took Ali Gaal into custody, said Dominque McNeely, a spokesman for Canada Border Services Agency.

He was detained under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act because he was deemed "inadmissible" to Canada under the provisions of the Act, McNeely said.

There had been no incident on the aircraft during the flight, McNeely said.

'I presume there was kind of a last-minute scramble when it was realized in Washington in the intelligence community that he was on his way.'— Wesley Wark, Munk Centre for International Studies

Other passengers on the flight from Charles De Gaulle Airport to Mexico City International Airport were re-screened and allowed to re-board the flight, said Lauren Gaches, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.

McNeely said his agency got a phone call advising them the flight was going to land in Montreal and that there was a man on board that "could be of interest to us."

In a statement, the TSA also said the U.S. has the right to refuse entry to any flight deemed a threat to its security, but neither the U.S. officials nor McNeely have said what threat the man might have posed.

"All I can confirm is that it was a person of interest that was interviewed by our officers," McNeely said.

Should not have been able to board plane

Wesley Wark, a professor with the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, said U.S. officials would have shared some information with Canadian authorities before the plane was permitted to land in Montreal.

"What the United States is determined to prevent is not just a potential terrorist landing at various places in the United States from air flights overseas but even people transiting American airspace," he said.

But, the fact that someone who appears to be on the U.S. no-fly list was able to board a flight is a problem.

"I presume there was kind of a last-minute scramble when it was realized in Washington in the intelligence community that he was on his way," said Wark. "A decision was made no doubt at the last minute to bring him down at the most convenient place, which I guess proved to be Montreal."

Gaal is currently being held in a Montreal-area immigration detention centre.

A hearing to review the grounds for his detention is scheduled for June 2.

With files from The Canadian Press