A Saudi who flew in from Jakarta with snakes, parrots and a squirrel in his hand luggage has been arrested at Abu Dhabi airport.

"The man was just about to board a plane at the capital’s airport when a member of staff noticed that something was moving inside a box he was carrying," said an English-language paper, 7Days.

"The passenger was taken to one side and asked to open up his luggage, and inside were four snakes, two parrots and a squirrel, all alive and separated in different compartments inside the box," it added.

The National said the Saudi, booked on Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways and whose final destination was another unspecified Arab country, "was caught at the first security checkpoint" after landing in the Emirati capital on Thursday.

"Carrying animals on board is strictly prohibited. In this case, other passengers' safety was at risk," Khamis al-Marar, Abu Dhabi's acting chief of security affairs and ports, was quoted as saying.

He told 7Days that "the passenger had no certificates or documentation for the animals. And we didn’t know if they were rare animals or if they could have had diseases."

Licensed animals have to travel in specially designed boxes, stored in the aircraft's hold, he said in The National, also an English-language daily.