KIEV - UKRAINIAN Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko offered to quit on Tuesday after he was detained last week at Frankfurt airport for being drunk and disorderly as he tried to board a plane for an official trip.

His resignation, which must be approved by Ukraine's parliament, will leave the country without three major cabinet figures - finance, foreign and interior ministers.

'I have asked the prime minister and the speaker of parliament to consider without delay the question of my resignation at a session of parliament,' Mr Lutsenko said. 'I have become the victim of a banal situation blown up into a political scandal because of domestic squabbles inside Ukraine,' he told a news conference.

Opposition members in the former Soviet republic swarmed around the speaker's chair in parliament to demand Mr Lutsenko's resignation be placed on the agenda.

Banners strung across the rostrum read: 'Yuri, sober up.' and 'The Interior Ministry is not a drunk tank.'

Frankfurt police in Germany said Mr Lutsenko was prevented from boarding a flight for Seoul in South Korea after airport officials noticed he and his 19-year old son were drunk. When they were stopped, both passengers flew into a rage, shouted and hurled their mobile telephones, police said, adding four officers were injured.

Later accounts of the incident, in the German magazine Focus, said Mr Lutsenko denounced those detaining him as 'Nazi Swine'. The daily Bild said he threatened officers in English, saying 'I kill you!' and called them 'Children of Nazis'.

Ukraine is beset by political sniping between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko - estranged allies from the 2004 pro-Western 'Orange Revolution'. A prominent figure in the 2004 mass 'orange' rallies which led to Mr Yushchenko's victory in the re-run of a rigged election, Mr Lutsenko had in recent months swung behind Mr Tymoshenko.

Although the interior ministry initialled said the story was untrue Lutsenko told the news conference he had consumed a mug of beer before attempting to board the aircraft. He said officers had surrounded members of the Ukrainian delegation flying to Seoul and he had become enraged when his son, who had recently undergone an operation, was handcuffed.

Mr Lutsenko also said the head of police in Hessen state had offered him an apology for the incident before members of the delegation were rebooked on another flight. -- REUTERS