The Venezuelan government has summoned the Dutch and US ambassadors in Caracas in connection with an alleged violation of Venezuelan airspace by a US military plane that took off from an air base in the Netherlands Antilles.

The incident reportedly took place last Friday but a US government spokesman has dismissed the allegations as baseless and unfounded. A similar incident is said to have occurred in May 2009.

President Hugo Chávez has complained on several occasions that the US is being allowed to use the air base on Curaçao to prepare an attack on his country. The Netherlands insists that the United States is using the base as part of its campaign to combat drug smuggling in the region.