The Boston office of the FBI arrested a known Algerian terrorist who was attending flight school in Massachusetts almost a month before this week's deadly attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, according to a report on French radio.

Just days after the FBI arrested the unidentified 31-year-old man in mid-August for carrying a false passport, the bureau was told by French intelligence officials that he was a high-ranking operative in the terrorist organization of Osama bin Laden, according to a report yesterday on Europe 1 Radio in Paris.

The man was reportedly carrying two passports when he was arrested, one Algerian and one French. One was authentic and the other forged.

After his arrest, a search of his home by the FBI turned up technical literature on airliners, design and construction material for Boeing aircraft and flight manuals, the radio station reported.

Boston FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz denied yesterday that the FBI made any arrest matching the description in the French radio report in August or in the "couple of months prior to that.''

"The U.S. Attorney's office was unable to find anything either,'' Marcinkiewicz said.

In an interview with the Herald yesterday, Europe 1 Radio reporter Frederic Helbert said instructors at a flight school in Massachusetts which the man was attending alerted authorities after they grew suspicious of the many detailed questions the man was asking about Boeing airliners.

Helbert said his sources for the report, unnamed French intelligence officials, are now concerned that the FBI did not aggressively pursue the information they provided.

"The French said the FBI didn't seem to understand that they should have gone further with that guy,'' Helbert said, adding that French intelligence officials are now "certain'' the Algerian was a member of the terrorist team which struck the United States on Sept. 11.

Intelligence officials in France reportedly told the FBI in August that the Algerian man they had in custody was a highly placed bin Laden operative who trained many of the exiled Saudi's best soldiers.

The French also told the bureau that the man - who was known to the international law enforcement agency Interpol - had traveled extensively around the world in the months leading up to his arrest.

Following the initial information exchange, the FBI made no more requests of the French and no specific alerts were passed on to European intelligence agencies by the U.S., Helbert said.

In his report, Helbert stated: "The investigation which might have prevented everything was not launched.''

According to Helbert, the French intelligence services were contacted officially by the FBI on Wednesday and asked to help with an investigation into the Algerian.

The Herald was unable to confirm an arrest by the FBI in August matching the Algerian's description. Employees at most of the flight schools in Massachusetts were contacted yesterday and none of them could provide any information.

It also could not be determined if the man is still in custody.

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