Foreign minister loses bags in T5

It could take some time for the minister to be reunited with his luggage

An unnamed EU foreign minister has been caught up in the baggage backlog at Heathrow's new Terminal 5, UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband says.

Writing in his blog, Mr Miliband describes how the minister told him he had lost his bags on his way to an informal meeting in Slovenia.

The minister who was in transit was told the bags could take weeks to find.

"He asked me to pass on a message to BA/BAA: 'For goodness' sake, get your act together'," said Mr Miliband.

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it would not comment on which minister had been caught up in the disruption.

A Slovenian foreign ministry spokesman was unaware of any problem but said it may well have been a minister from one of the Baltic states.

A spokeswoman for Lithuanian Foreign Minister Petras Vaitekunas said that although he had gone through Heathrow he had not had any problems.

Estonian and Latvian officials did not fly via London.

The opening of Terminal 5 has led to a backlog of 15,000 bags and much of the luggage has been sent to other airports to be processed.