A four-wheel-drive vehicle raced across a central reservation and rammed into the front doors of Glasgow airport's main terminal today before exploding in flames, Glasgow police and witnesses said.
A Glasgow police spokeswoman said there were no immediate reports of any injuries and said the blaze was under control.
Emergency services at Glasgow Airport after a car on fire was driven into the front of the main terminal building.
Witnesses told the BBC that the vehicle, a Land Rover or a Jeep Cherokee, had exploded shortly after crashing into the glass front doors of the terminal, and said there was a heavy stench of petrol.
"It raced across the central reservation and went straight into the building," said taxi driver Ian Crosby outside the terminal. Crosby said a stocky Asian man had got out of the car and was quickly tackled to the ground by bystanders.
A separate witness told Sky News that a man had attempted to take a gas cylinder from the car before the vehicle went up in flames, but that could not be independently confirmed.
Initial reports say that two people have been arrested after the incident.
The attack came a day after police in London foiled a plot involving two car bombs packed with fuel, gas canisters and nails that were parked in central London on Friday night and set to detonate.
Anti-terror police said the car bombs could have killed or maimed scores of people. A large-scale counter-terrorism operation has been launched in the wake of the thwarted plot, which came less than two years after 52 commuters were killed in a series of suicide bomb blasts on London's transport system.
In Glasgow, another witness told the BBC he was not sure that the car was intended to be a bomb as
Eyewitness James Edgar speaking to Sky News
the explosion that occurred after it crashed was relatively small.
The witness, Stephen Clarkson, who said he had helped tackle one of the occupants of the vehicle to the ground, said another Asian man from the vehicle was badly burnt in the incident. He was also detained and taken away by police, he said.
"There was chaos at the airport," James Edgar, another witness, told Sky News. "Suddenly everyone said to get out of the airport."
BAA, which manages the airport, was not immediately available to comment.
Glasgow airport handles around 8.5 million passengers a year, according to its Web site, and would have been packed with holidaymakers at the time of the incident, which took place at around 15.20pm, according to Glasgow police.