A mother claims an airline sent her lone son, 5, on the wrong flight - leaving him 200 miles away and her with a random child.

Maribel Martinez said she was presented with a complete stranger after waiting for her son Andy at New York JFK to return from a family holiday.

Meanwhile, Andy had arrived 200 miles away in Boston, Ms Martinez told the New York Daily News.

The distraught mother was left fearing her son had been abducted, believing she would "never see him again".

Now the airliner JetBlue is investigating how two children ended up in the wrong city.

Ms Martinez had been waiting at JFK airport on 17 August when a boy was presented to her carrying her son's passport.

The mother claimed it then took JetBlue more than three hours to to locate her son and that he had ended up on the wrong plane despite wearing a wristband with his name on it.

In a statement on Thursday, JetBlue said that "two unaccompanied children of the same age traveling separately from Santiago, Dominican Republic - one to New York JFK and one to Boston - each boarded a flight to the incorrect destination".

The company added that its teams in JFK and Boston took "immediate steps" to locate the children and send them to the correct destinations.

"While the children were always under the care and supervision of JetBlue crewmembers, we realize this situation was distressing for the families", the company said.