Beirut - A Lebanese security officer has been detained by local authorities on charges of spying on the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, a Lebanese judicial source said Wednesday.

The source said the authorities arrested earlier this month the man who works as an inspector for the Security General Department at Beirut International Airport after 'close surveillance of his suspicious action.'

According to the source the individual was the head of an espionage network and was spying for the intelligence services of an unnamed European country.

The detained man, from the Lebanese northern port city of Tripoli, was trying to recruit other members in order to develop and expand the spy network, the judicial source said.

'The network was trying to conduct surveillance on the activities of Hezbollah, like their offices and institutions,' a high-ranking Lebanese security source said.

According to the Lebanese daily As Safir, who first reported the arrest, the alleged spy was using Global Positioning System (GPS) devices to send signals locating the objects of surveillance.

The report did not reveal details about the European intelligence-run network, but said that it appeared to have set one goal -- Hezbollah -- with a mission to "monitor Hezbollah centers and institutions as well as military positions."

Maps, pictures and videotapes of Hezbollah offices in Beirut and its southern suburbs as well as in the country's south and east were seized during a raid on the inspector's house, according to the report.

The report said this is the first spy network exposed in the region since the second war in Lebanon.

Lebanese authorities arrested in June 2006 two men after accusing them of being behind the murder of Islamic Jihad official Mahmoud Majzoub and his brother in the southern port city of Sidon. The two were believed to have been working for the Israeli intelligence Mossad. -With Agencies