Indonesian authorities have arrested an American man for blasphemy after he pulled the plug on a loudspeaker at a mosque because it woke him up, police said on Monday.

Luke Gregory Lloyd, 64, was taken into custody after he disrupted a nightly Koran reading session near his home on Lombok island which was being broadcast over the mosque's loudspeaker during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The incident happened on August 22 and Lloyd has been under police guard at a hotel ever since, pending further investigations.

"He got angry as the Koranic reading woke him up. He scolded people in the mosque before pulling out the loudspeaker's cable," police officer Lalu Mahsun told reporters.

He could face five years in jail under the mainly Muslim country's blasphemy laws. Police also said Lloyd's visa had expired in 2006.