Al Jazeera said during its morning bulletin that police seized Hussein Abdel Ghani from his hotel in the budget resort of Dahab, where bomb attacks killed 18 people this week.

"The prosecutor ordered Hussein's arrest pending investigations into charges of broadcasting false information which the authorities said was aimed at spreading chaos in the country," the popular Arabic channel said on its Web site.

Al Jazeera did not specify the offending news item, but on Wednesday, Abdel Ghani reported that militants had attacked a police checkpoint in an eastern Egyptian province. The Interior Ministry denied the report.

Al Jazeera has been banned from several Arab countries due to its hard-hitting -- and sometimes controversial -- coverage of events in a region accustomed to state-controlled media.

At least two of its correspondents are under arrest -- the most prominent is Tayseer Alouni, who was convicted by a Spanish court of allegedly conspiring with al Qaeda militants.