Police arrested a man climbing on the Eiffel Tower, leading to visitors being temporarily stranded at the summit – including a man who decided during the wait to propose to his partner.

Amir Khan, from Washington, DC, had been planning to propose to Kat Warren later on Thursday in a Paris garden away from the crowds, with a romantic dinner on the River Seine also on the menu.

But when the lifts were temporarily shut down because of the climber, stranding the couple and others at the top, Mr Khan decided to spring his surprise.

Pat Eaton-Robb, an Associated Press reporter from Connecticut who was also stuck up there, got their story.

“I figured we might be here longer than I imagined,” Mr Khan told Mr Eaton-Robb.

“So I didn’t want to miss dinner and she always wanted to be proposed to on or under the Eiffel Tower. So I figured, ‘This is it, this is the moment’.”

And the answer?

“Yes,” of course.

“He had a pretty good chance of me saying ‘Yes’ all along,” Ms Warren said, laughing.

The climber was found between the tower’s second and third floors, said Alice Beunardeau, communications director for the 1,083ft (330-metre) Paris landmark.

A specialist team of climbing firefighters led the man down and police arrested him, she said.

Ms Beunardeau said she had subsequently been informed that the man was carrying a banner about American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish.

“I think it was ‘Free Billie Eilish’,” she said.

“I’m not certain of that at this moment but on the face of it, that was the message.”

Mr Eaton-Robb and his wife Kathleen have had an eventful week-long visit to Paris: on Tuesday, they were also in a crowd that was evacuated from the Palace of Versailles because of a security scare.