An investigation has been launched into how a twelve-year-old Belgian boy boarded a flight from Brussels to Spain alone.

The child was said to have passed security without a boarding pass or ID. His parents reported him missing on Thursday, but it wasn’t until Saturday that he was found by a police officer at Malaga airport.

Questions are now being asked of Brussels airport and the airline Jet Air about failures in security checks. The airline and airport security services are studying CCTV footage to find out how he managed to board the Jet Air flight.

The reasons why the boy took the flight remain unclear. According to his mother, the boy ran away after a dispute with one of his teachers.