An alleged Israeli agent detained in Egypt is an American immigrant to Israel who once wrote that he hoped to promote Israeli policies in the Arab world, according to information he and others posted on websites.
The man was identified by the Egyptian MENA news agency as Ilan Chaim Grapel.
According to Reuters, Israel's ambassador to Cairo said on Monday that Tel Aviv was looking into the case.
On his Facebook page, Grapel wrote that he was "preaching at al-Azhar" in Cairo and that he had studied at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
A judiciary source in Egypt said the Israeli suspect had been active in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
A statement issued by Egypt's public prosecutor said the suspect, ordered held for 15 days, had been sent to Egypt to recruit agents "trying to gather information and data and to monitor the events of the Jan. 25 revolution".
Grapel's mother, Irene, said her son holds U.S. and Israeli citizenship.
During Grapel's military service in Israel he had been wounded in the 2006 Lebanon war while serving as an Israeli paratrooper. He immigrated to Israel in 2005 from Queens, New York, at the age of 22.
