A Mexican activist, mathematician and writer claims she has fallen foul of a US blacklist after a plane on which she was a passenger was denied access to American air space.

Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar, a Mexican citizen, had been on her way from Mexico City to Italy via Spain for a conference last week when her flight was turned back. She believes it was because of charges against her in Bolivia two decades ago involving a revolutionary group, the Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army. She was arrested at the time but the charges were later dropped.

Her former husband, Álvaro García Linera, now vice-president of Bolivia, was also arrested and the charges dropped.

The US maintains a blacklist of thousands of people not permitted either entry to the country or to be aboard a plane using its air space. The list, created after the 9/11 attacks, has been criticised by US civil rights groups who say it is too broad and those on it have no chance to challenge their inclusion.

The plane had to turn back to Mexico after 90 minutes. Gutiérrez, 48, was forced to leave the flight, which then resumed its journey to Spain. Almost all flights from Mexico to Europe cross US air space.

Gutiérrez, in a phone interview from Mexico City, said she was arrested in 1992 and accused of involvement in an uprising against the Bolivian state as part of the Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army. She was tortured and imprisoned in La Paz, and released without trial after five years. Bolivia dropped the charges in 2007.

Gutiérrez said: "This is an abuse of power by the US. I think I am on a blacklist. What happened confirms I am on that list." She said the US should not be able to arbitrarily block passengers from flying over its airspace.

She had flown over the US at least 10 times without any similar incidents, including in January 2010 on the way back to Mexico from London. Citing another example of inconsistency, she said her former husband has visited the US at least twice in his capacity as vice-president, even though he had been arrested and jailed on the same charges, along with about a dozen others.

A spokesman for the US transport security administration, part of the homeland security department, set up after 9/11 to co-ordinate anti-terrorist actions, said: "The United States has the authority to deny access to US airspace. For security reasons, we will not discuss the details surrounding when or why access is denied."

The US has a no-fly list containing about 8,500 names, as of last year. There is a further list, the terrorist watch list, which has about 400,000 names.

Gutiérrez has written to the airline involved, Aeromexico, asking why she was forced to leave the plane and whether the airline had shown its passenger list to the US for scrutiny, and has not received an answer.

She had been on her way to Rome for a conference to discuss Latin American social movements, beginning Friday and finishing on Sunday and caught the Aeromexico flight in Mexico City last Wednesday. During the flight, the captain said he would be returning to Monterrey because US air space had been closed off.

On arrival in Monterrey, she said she was told by police the US had refused to allow access because she was aboard. The airline told her it had an obligation to get her to Italy but not across US air space, and offered her an alternative route via Argentina.

She declined, saying she would not have arrived in Rome until late on Saturday afternoon, with most of the conference over. Instead, she returned to Mexico City and joined the conference via Skype.

Gutiérrez lived in Bolivia from 1984 to 2001 when she returned to Mexico. She visited the US as a teenager, and lived in Kansas City for a few months when she was 14, but, since her return from Bolivia, has not applied for a visa for the US, on the assumption she would not receive one, saying it was difficult for Latin Americans.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have mounted challenges against the lists because travellers have no way to find out if they are on them or any opportunity to clear their names.

García Linera, 48, who Gutiérrez left in 2001 after 18 years of marriage, successfully ran on the vice-presidential ticket in the 2005 presidential election that saw Evo Morales come to power.