Dutch border police have said they arrested a couple on a plane after they fled a hotel where Covid-positive passengers from South African flights were quarantined, AFP reports.

The drama came after Dutch authorities said that 61 people who arrived on two flights at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport on Friday had tested positive for the coronavirus, 13 of them with the new Omicron variant.

One of the members of the couple had tested positive for Covid-19 and went into isolation, while the other person was negative but in quarantine, according to Public health authority spokeswoman Stefanie van Waardenburg.