Shouldn't laugh but it is funny

Women attempt to get on plane with a corpse

At first it seemed that the elderly gentleman in the wheelchair, wrapped in a blanket and wearing sunglasses, had simply nodded off while waiting for his budget airline flight to Berlin. But when staff at Liverpool's John Lennon Airport took a closer look at the slumped figure, it emerged that he had in fact answered a final departure call from a much higher authority.

Police revealed yesterday that two German women had been arrested on suspicion of trying to smuggle Curt Willi Jarant, their deceased 91-year-old relative, on to an easyJet flight on Saturday. They were discovered after ferrying the corpse by taxi from a house 42 miles away in Oldham, Greater Manchester. It is alleged that the man's widow, Gitta Jarant, 66, and step-daughter, Anke Anusic, 41, ferried their dead relative around the airport in a wheelchair. When challenged at the check-in desk, the pair insisted that the man, who was also a German national, was merely "fast asleep".

The two women were questioned by Greater Manchester Police and later released on police bail pending the results of a post-mortem examination. The coroner is also investigating, although there are not thought to be any suspicious circumstances.

Yesterday Ms Jarant denied murdering her late husband. "I [did not] kill my Willi. My Willi is my god. I [have loved] my Willi for 22 years," she told the BBC.

Ms Anusic added that her stepfather, who suffered from Alzheimer's, had been treated in hospital for pneumonia. "They would think that for 24 hours we would carry a dead person? This is ridiculous. He was moving, he was breathing. Eight people saw him."

It is understood the dead man had been visiting relatives in Oldham over the Easter holiday but died on Good Friday. A spokeswoman for easyJet said: "Airport staff were immediately concerned about his health and the first aid team were called. It was then discovered the passenger was, in fact, deceased and the police were called."

A source at the airport – which uses the John Lennon lyric "above us only sky" as its slogan – said it was a highly unusual situation. A colleague of the taxi driver at Broadway Cars in Oldham said he had been left deeply upset after learning that his fare had been dead all along.

Kevin McAllister of Co-operative Funeralcare said that taking a body out of the country should be "relatively straightforward". The family of the deceased must formally register the death and satisfy the coroner over the cause of death and the burial arrangements. They are then issued with a form that allows an embalmed body to be transported in a sealed coffin.