CAIRO – A 44-year-old German woman stripped naked at Cairo airport as she waited for a flight to Germany, an AFP correspondent said.

The woman took off all her clothes while appearing to succumb to an attack of nerves before boarding a flight to Frankfurt, the correspondent said.

Astonished passengers looked on before the airport authorities brought in an Egyptian woman doctor who injected her with a tranquilizer.

The plane took off 30 minutes late without the woman, who was handed over to the German embassy in Cairo after the airport alerted diplomats there, officials said.

Nobody could be reached for comment at the embassy later in the afternoon.

In a separate incident Wednesday at the airport, security officials found 30,000 Egyptian pounds (4,600 dollars) worth of banknotes hidden in sandwiches which were wrapped up in a bag passing through an x-ray machine.

The 40-year-old passenger who was heading to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, told security officials that his bag contained 15 cheese sandwiches when they asked him to explain the suspicious image appearing on the machine.

He left the country with 5,000 pounds cash, the limit passengers are allowed to take outside Egypt, after having handed over the balance for safe-keeping.