NEW DELHI - India is planning to lodge a protest with the United States government over a humiliating pat-down of its ambassador at an American airport by security agencies, sources said Thursday.

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"The Ministry of External Affairs will write to the US State Department to protest the way Indian envoy to the US Meera Shankar was pulled out of an airport security line and patted down by an American security agent in Mississippi despite being told of her diplomatic eminence," the sources said.

The incident took place on December 4 at the Jackson-Evers International Airport where the Indian envoy, who was drapped in national dress sari, was about to board a flight to Baltimore, after attending the Mississippi State University's agenda.

She was pulled from a security line and taken to a VIP waiting room before being frisked hand-on by a female Transportation Security Administration agent, according to local media reports.

This was the second time Shankar had been patted down at US airports, said the reports.