An Air Canada passenger claims that she warned flight attendants that a fellow air traveller was wearing a mask on plane that was bound for Vancouver last month.

Nuray Kurtur-Balas was on board the same Oct. 29 flight from Hong Kong that carried a young Asian man who used a silicone mask to disguise himself as an elderly white male.

The texture of the mask on the man's face made her suspicious as soon as she saw it.

"It wasn't a real person's skin. It looked plastic," Kurtur-Balas told CNN in a recent interview.

"I said to the flight attendant, 'Did you check out that person's hands? They seem like they belong to a 20-year-old kid. There are no wrinkles."

Kurtur-Balas said she relayed her concerns to three different flight attendants, but was unable to get anything more than a promise to "look into it." Another staff member told her that the man may have a medical condition and had not done anything wrong.

The 35-year-old said she didn't buy the story and was concerned "he was going to blow the plane up."

At some point during the flight, the 22-year-old Chinese national removed the mask he had been wearing. It was at that point that flight staff notified authorities.

The man was arrested when the plane landed in Vancouver. He then claimed refugee status.

His case became public after someone leaked a Canada Border Services Agency internal alert to CNN.

The leak, which is now under investigation by the CBSA, also included photos of the man and his elaborate mask that disguised his age and true identity.

Air Canada has said it is also investigating the incident on the B.C.-bound flight. But the airline has not offered comment on the allegations from Kurtur-Balas.

Despite the intense interest in the case, immigration lawyer Dan McLeod has asked an Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator to keep the media out of the man's forthcoming hearings.

McLeod has argued that the information being released is putting his client's safety in jeopardy.

"There's a heightened risk that, first of all, his identity may be revealed and, secondly, there may be repercussions for him, and, thirdly, that there may be retribution against his family," McLeod told reporters after the hearing.

He said his client was concerned that further personal information could leak out about himself.

McLeod was also emphatic about the need to ban Chinese-language newspapers, which he said are controlled by Beijing.

The newspapers in question -- Sing Tao, Ming Pao and the World Journal -- say they do not have any ties to the Chinese government.

Canadian media outlets are also opposing McLeod's request for a ban.

Dan Burnett, a lawyer representing several media groups, told the IRB adjudicator Monday that "openness is vital to public confidence in the justice system and that includes this (hearing)."

The adjudicator has indicated that she will release a decision on the matter Wednesday, when the refugee claimant is due to appear for another hearing.

With files from The Canadian Press