An airline has refused to apologize for removing four Middle Eastern passengers from a Chicago-bound flight on Tuesday.

The group - a woman and three men - were ordered to leave the aircraft at Baltimore-Washington Airport after fellow passengers said they were behaving suspiciously, just days after the terrorist attacks in Paris.

It transpired one of the men was watching the news on his phone as they sat on board Spirit Airlines Flight 969 waiting to fly to Chicago.

However, a spokesman has rejected calls from Muslim advocacy groups to apologize for ejecting the group.

The group were filmed being removed from the plane by another passenger on board the Spirit Airline flight

'We do not tolerate discrimination or remove passengers because of where they are from, their ethnicity, or their religion,' the airline said in a statement.

'The passenger in question was removed from the flight because of his behavior, which was breaking airline and FAA rules during the taxiing process, and refusing to cooperate with crew instructions.

'Law Enforcement was called and they chose to remove others who were traveling with the passenger who was breaking the rules.'

According to the spokesman, the plane was taxi-ing when a woman alerted airplane staff to the man's 'suspicious' behavior then grabbed her daughter and ran to the back of the plane.

As a result the plane returned to the gate at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, and the woman and three men were removed and released without charge a few hours later.

Maryland Transportation Authority Police 1st Sgt Jonathan Green told the Chicago Tribune: 'One of the three males was sitting next to a female passenger and apparently he was watching a media report. I don't know of what nature it was, but given current events, I can imagine what it was.

Other passengers on the flight reported that the removed passengers were of 'Middle Eastern descent'

One passenger said: 'They quietly stood up, removed their bags and followed two officers off the plane'

Passenger Jenna Farella said that the situation on the plane on Tuesday was 'the scariest moment of my life'

'Being in her shoes, I'm guessing that combined with what she saw or heard created some concerns for her,' Green said.

'She told the flight crew, which was most likely a flight attendant, and they spoke to the captain and the captain made the choice to go back to the terminal.'

'We did not find any criminal activity or violations of any kind and they were free to do what they pleased at that point,' Green said.

He described the four as a husband, wife and relative traveling together and a third man who was sitting near them.

Cellphone footage shows the woman, who is wearing a headscarf, talking to authorities on the plane.

Passengers said the woman and three men appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent and that security officials who came aboard said there was a 'credible security threat', ABC reported.

One passenger said of the group: 'They quietly stood up, removed their bags and followed two officers off the plane.'