Argentina's top TV journalist Jorge Lanata has alleged that he was held in the basement of Caracas airport for nearly two hours while Venezuela's secret service erased his team's camera, computer and cellphone memories. Only then, he says, were they allowed to leave the country.

Lanata, a harsh critic of the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez and of the Argentinian president Cristina Kirchner, was returning to Buenos Aires on a regular airline flight after covering the Venezuelan election. One of the most popular segments of Lanata's show is a comedy segment with Chavez and Kirchner impersonators that has made his show, Periodismo Para Todos (Journalism for Everyone), one of the most popular on Argentine television.

The journalist said that he and his team were interrogated by Venezuelan secret police and accused of spying because, during his report last night for the Argentinian TV channel 13, he showed two written orders from Venezuela's secret service ordering his surveillance while in Caracas.

"We are very shaken and they erased all the material we were bringing back," said Lanata on his release. The passengers of Lanata's airline flight had to wait for nearly two hours while the journalist and his team were interrogated.