Beijing  - Airport police in the south-western Chinese city of Chengdu overpowered a man who was armed with a starting pistol and had taken a woman hostage near a security counter, state media said on Friday.

The police and security officers seized the 23-year-old man after he fired two shots into the air and grabbed the woman at Chengdu's Shuangliu International Airport on Thursday morning, the official Xinhua news agency quoted police as saying.

The police quickly overpowered the man and freed the woman uninjured, the agency said.

The hostage-taker told police he bought the starting pistol and blanks from a website.

Police were still questioning the man and did not know if he knew the woman he took hostage, it said. (dpa)