ROME - Italian police held a truck driver for more than 10 hours Sunday after finding a suspicious word in his otherwise perfectly-in-order papers.

The word was "Laden".

The driver was heading from Italy into Switzerland when he was stopped as part of a huge operation to try to trace a truck authorities fear may be carrying explosives for use in an attack ordered by Osama bin Laden.

The driver happily handed his German-language documents to police who at first had few suspicions until they came across the single word "Laden", at which point he was hauled in for questioning, the Italian news agency AGI said.

While the trucker was questioned, police called in explosives experts from a nearby airport, a team of sniffer dogs and specialist anti-mafia and terrorism police who surrounded and sealed off the suspect truck.

Unable to speak Italian, the driver could not explain that "Laden" is just German for "load".

But after a tense few hours it was discovered that the "Laden" was no more offensive than a full load of wine. - Nampa-Reuters