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police have arrested and jailed a US diplomat working for Washington's consulate in on suspicion of issuing a fake passport to a national, Turkish media reported Wednesday.

The pro-government Daily Sabah newspaper said that diplomats' customary immunity from prosecution does not apply in countries in which they have no accreditation.

This gave Turkey the right to arrest the diplomat, who was accredited to only work in , the newspaper said.

The arrest threatens to further strain Turkey's relations with Washington, which have deteriorated since the election of

The US embassy in Ankara made no immediate comment.

Citing police sources, Turkish media said the diplomat -Ìýidentified only by the initials D.J.K. -Ìýwas initially detained at Airport on November 11.

The American has since been charged with providing a faked copy of their own passport to a Syrian who was trying to fly from Istanbul to , the reports said.

The diplomat received $10,000 in exchange for the passport during a handoff at Airport, which was captured by closed-circuit cameras, according to the reports.

The Syrian national, identified by the initials R.S., was charged with forging an official document and released.

"D.J.K., an American citizen, was arrested and transferred to prison," the police source was quoted as saying.

It was not immediately clear why Turkish police waited more than a month before publicising the case.

Turkey, which is a strategically vital member of the defence alliance, has close but complex relations with the United States.

Successive US administrations have treated Turkey as a bulwark in the volatile Middle East region, and a regional counterweight to Russia.

The United States also stores nuclear weapons on Turkey's southern Incirlik airbase, which is used by the US Air Force.

But relations soured after's decision to take delivery of an advanced Russian missile defence system in 2019.

Washington retaliated by kicking Turkey out of the F-35 joint strike fighter programme and then sanctioning Turkey's military procurement agency.

Biden has made a point of highlighting which further eroded when Erdogan unleashed a sweeping crackdown after surviving a coup attempt in 2016.