Naomi Campbell had to be removed by police from a flight out of Heathrow last night after getting angry about a missing bag.

The model was then arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer as she was hauled away from the first class lounge of Terminal 5 “ranting and screaming”.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said that a woman was arrested at the terminal for an assault on police, but refused to give her name.

The spokesman said: “At 17.11, officers were alerted to a disturbance at Terminal 5. Officers attended, and subsequently a 37-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of assaulting an officer and was taken to Heathrow police station where she remains.”

The model was due to catch a 4pm flight from Heathrow to Los Angeles but had apparently mislaid one of her three items of hand luggage. She then apparently demanded that airport staff find the bag and turned down their offer to look for it and forward it later.

As tempers rose, staff allegedly asked her to leave the airport, saying that she was unfit to fly.

Police were called and Campbell was reportedly heard screaming “get off me, leave me alone”, before she allegedly assaulted an officer and was taken to Heathrow police station.

BA269, the flight Campbell was apparently due to board, left more than an hour and a half late. Bags belonging to the model and her entourage were taken from the flight.

After being questioned she was release in the early hours of the morning on police bail.

Last year Campbell is said to have unleashed a tirade of abuse when she arrived at Heathrow 11 minutes before the scheduled take-off of a BA plane and demanded that she be allowed to board.

According to witnesses to the incident, she shouted at BA staff: “I can’t believe you won’t allow me on your flight. What is this? Who must I speak to?” She then left the airport without taking up BA’s offer of a place on a later flight to New York.

Campbell, who once said that her fiery temper was the result of lingering resentment towards her father for abandoning her as a child, pleaded guilty last year at a court in New York to a charge of reckless assault. The court in Manhattan heard that she had assaulted her housekeeper by throwing a mobile phone at her.

The judge in the case sentenced Campbell to five days’ community service and ordered her to attend an anger management course.

Campbell was also ordered to pay medical bills of $363 (£185) for her injured housekeeper, Ana Scolavino, who needed four stitches after the incident.

Campbell admitted in court to throwing the phone in her Park Avenue apartment, but said that she did not intend it to hit Mrs Scolavino. She said: “I am advised that Ana was hurt, and I am deeply sorry about that.”

British Airways said yesterday that the chaotic opening of Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 would cost the airline about £16 million.

BA added that the terminal would operate a full schedule of flights tomorrow for the first time since it opened one week ago. To date the airline has cancelled 300 flights owing to “logistical problems”.

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