Phoenix and federal authorities detained two Middle Eastern men accused by a passenger of acting suspiciously aboard a Phoenix-bound plane Saturday evening.

An investigation by the FBI found no evidence of a terroristic threat and the men were later released without charges.

While en route from Orlando, Fla. to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, a passenger aboard U.S. Airways Flight 192 reported that two men were acting strangely, said Suzanne Trevino, a Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman.

"The passengers alerted the flight crew and they called for law enforcement and TSA officers to meet them when the plane arrived," Trevino said.

Once the plane arrived at Sky Harbor for its scheduled stop about 8 p.m., the two men were met by Phoenix police, TSA and FBI officials, said Special Agent Manuel Johnson, a FBI spokesman.

The passenger told authorities the two men, described as being Middle Eastern, were speaking "loudly" in their native language.

The passenger then saw a suicide bomber on the DVD version of the movie "The Kingdom," and one of the men reportedly got up to use the lavatory when the fasten-seatbelt sign was lit.

"The totality of those three occurrences led this passenger to believe this was suspicious," Johnson said.

The men were cooperative with the FBI when questioned, then were later released to catch another flight to their final destination in California. Neither was charged.

The incident delayed the inbound flight from Orlando for about an hour as authorities emptied the plane, searched luggage and swept the plane with police K-9s to ensure nothing dangerous was left aboard. Authorities found nothing.

Todd Lehmacher, a spokesman for Tempe-based US Airways, declined to comment on the incident and referred all questions to the TSA.

In October, US Airways settled a discrimination lawsuit for an unspecified sum in a case involving six imams who were taken from a Phoenix-bound plane from Minneapolis in November 2006.

In that incident, passengers were alarmed that the clerics said their evening prayers in Arabic, before boarding the flight and some of the men made critical comments about the Iraq war. The imams were handcuffed and questioned for several hours before being released without charges.

Airports nationwide have beefed up security since Christmas Day, when a Nigerian man allegedly attempted to blow up Northwest Flight 253 in Detroit. Federal authorities said the device Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, tried to detonate malfunctioned and he suffered significant burns to his legs.

"We definitely want the public to be vigilant to report information, but we don't agree with racial profiling," Johnson said.

"What is suspicious to one person could mean something else to another."

Racial profiling can be counterproductive, said Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper in a statement released Sunday.

"While everyone supports robust airline security measures, racial and religious profiling are in fact counterproductive and can lead to a climate of insecurity and fear," Hooper said in the statement.

CAIR describes itself the nation's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization.