A hostage situation at Hamburg Airport involving a young child has ended after 18 hours, according to local police.

The man drove through a security barrier and on to the airport tarmac on Saturday night with his four-year-old daughter in the car and parked under a plane.

He eventually gave himself up to the authorities "without resistance", according to police, and was arrested.

"The child appears to be unharmed," they wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

The incident caused the disruption of several flights in and out of the airport. Efforts are now under way to resume operations.

It began at about 20:00 local time (19:00 GMT) when the suspect drove his car to the airport's apron, the area where aircraft are usually parked. According to local media, he parked under a Turkish Airlines plane.

Police said the man shot his weapon twice in the air and threw burning bottles from the vehicle. It was unclear if the man had explosives.

The authorities believe the situation involved a "custody dispute". The child's mother is reported to have alerted emergency services that the four-year-old had been taken.

"I wish the mother, the child and her family a lot of strength to cope with this terrible experience," Hamburg mayor Peter Tschentscher wrote on X.

Hamburg police spokeswoman Sandra Levgruen said earlier on Sunday that the man did not agree with some decisions made by the authorities in relation to the custody arrangement and wanted to travel to Turkey with the child.

"He speaks about his life being a heap of shards," she told German broadcaster ZDF.

Local media reported that negotiations with the man were conducted in Turkish through a translator, but it is unclear what his connection to the country is.

The airport said it was working to resume operations as quickly as possible. A total of 286 flights with about 34,500 passengers had been scheduled for Sunday, it said earlier.