MADRID - A British woman was decapitated in a supermarket on the Spanish resort island of Tenerife on Friday by a man who then fled into the street grasping her head, the local emergency services said.

The head of a decapitated woman is taken away on a stretcher in Los Cristianos in the Spanish Canary Island of Tenerife May 13, 2011. A British woman was decapitated in a supermarket on the Spanish resort island of Tenerife on Friday by a man who then fled into the street grasping her head, the local emergency services said. [Photo/Agencies]

The mayor of the town of Arona, quoted by Spanish media, said the man, who was arrested as he tried to escape, was a 28-year-old Bulgarian with a history of mental illness.

Media reports described the victim as a British woman in her 60s who had no known relationship to her attacker.

Witnesses said the man walked up to his victim in a Chinese store in the Los Cristianos district on Friday morning, pulled out a knife and stabbed her in the neck.

"I heard screaming and looked behind and saw a scruffy, unkempt man of about mid-twenties holding a head by the hair," said Colin Kirby of Tenerife Magazine.

"I thought at first it was a sick joke stunt, the man was muttering and shouting and more people started screaming."

The attacker was eventually tackled by security guards and passers-by.

A witness told Spanish radio station Cadena Ser he had just parked his car when he saw a man running down the street holding a woman's head in his hand, covered in blood.

Tenerife, the largest of Spain's Canary Islands off the north west coast of Africa, is a popular destination for British holidaymakers and retirees.