Airline sorry for forcing passenger to take pregnancy test before flight to Saipan

An airline has apologised after staff forced a passenger to take a pregnancy test before she was allowed to board a flight to Saipan.

Part of the Northern Mariana Islands, Saipan has become a popular place for foreign women to give birth as it makes them eligible for US citizenship.

Despite already completing a questionnaire before the flight to state she was not pregnant, Midori Nishida was escorted by Hong Kong Express Airways staff to a toilet and given a strip to urinate on.

The tests came back negative and she was allowed to board.

The 25-year-old described the ordeal as "very humiliating and frustrating" and said the airline did not respond to her initial complaints.

The airline has now apologised.

"We would like to apologise unreservedly to anyone who has been affected by this," it said in a statement to NBC News.

"We took actions on flights to Saipan from February 2019 to help ensure US immigration laws were not being undermined.

"We have immediately suspended the practice while we review it."

The airline said it had been acting on concerns raised by officials in the Northern Mariana Islands.