PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A local Pakistani official says authorities have detained an American man near the country's famed Khyber Pass leading to Afghanistan because he did not have government permission to travel there.

Official Javed Khan says the man was apprehended Monday in the Jamrud area of Khyber, part of Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal region that is off-limits to foreigners without government authorization.

Khan said the man was transferred to the main city in the northwest, Peshawar, but did not provide any additional information.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Rick Snelsire, confirmed that Pakistani government officials have given him the same information but could not independently verify the report.