AN £12million private jet used by Lionel Messi has been forced to make an emergency landing at Brussels airport due to a fault with the plane.

The Barcelona star's favoured plane was making its way to Tenerife in the Canary Islands when it suffered from issues with its landing gear.

The aircraft grounded at Zaventem Airport in the Belgian capital for the first time at 9.18am.

Less than an hour-and-a-half later, it departed again, only to turn around and return to Brussels.

It took-off at 10.35am local time and headed south-west out of Brussels but just 43 minutes and 132 miles later at 11.18am it touched down again.

Information from Flight Aware shows the aircraft flew from San Carlos de Bariloche in Argentina to Guararapes aiport in Recife, Brazil, a 5h 51m flight.

It then took off from Recife at 7.19pm local time last night, making a 9h 6m journey to Brussels, landing this morning.

But after the short stopover in Belgium, the plane did not make the journey to Tenerife as planned.

The plane's last flights before that were from Argentina to Port Elizabeth, South Africa and back on the weekend on March 21 and 22.

There is currently no information as to who was on the jet.

Messi, who regularly hires the Gulfstream V jet, has even personalised the aircraft to make it feel like his own.