A tense standoff between police and a driver who allegedly claimed to have a bomb in his vehicle ended without injury on Saturday when officers broke their way into his car and arrested him.

Zi Xiangdong, a spokesman with the city's public security bureau, said on Sunday that the case was still under investigation but it appeared that the 35-year-old man surnamed Hou drove to Beijing in a white pickup with a bomb in his vehicle.

He was surrounded by police in Dawanglu at midday on Saturday and, after more than an hour of negotiations, officers defused the situation.

On Saturday afternoon Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau posted information on its official micro blog saying that the driver was from Liaoning province.

According to a Beijing News report, the sequence of events that ended in the dramatic take-down began when police got a report from a gas station in Tianjin on the Beijing-Harbin Highway.

A staff member reported that a driver refused to pay after putting 290-yuan-worth of fuel in his tank on Saturday at about 9 am.

The gas station worker said the man claimed he was going to Beijing to appeal to the authorities for help and had not taken any money with him.

Staff at the gas station reportedly confronted the driver and pulled out the keys from the ignition of his vehicle but the driver became angry and took out a crossbow and shot toward the workers.

An employee from a nearby convenience store told the newspaper that the driver also took out a red package and said it was a bomb. He reportedly told the workers that he would blow up the gas station if they did not let him leave.

The paper said the employees threw back the man's car keys and he drove away.

At 9:47 am the white vehicle arrived at the Bailu Toll Station in Beijing.

The toll collector said the man, who he described as being of medium height and wearing a black cap and black coat, told him he could not pay the 20-yuan toll. He said the man refused to fill out a form that required him to leave his driving license number and other proof of identity and drove away impatiently through the toll gate, followed by the police to West Dawanglu at around 10:47 am.

The driver allegedly refused to stop until he was boxed in by four police cars.

The report said the man then shouted to officers that he had a bomb in his vehicle and threatened to explode it.

Officers sealed off the area, refusing to let cars pass and evacuating people from nearby homes and businesses. They also shut the nearby subway station as they attempted to deal with the situation.

Witness said sharpshooters took up positions on rooftops and negotiators and bomb disposal officers arrived at the scene along with an explosion-proof tank and a fire engine.

A police negotiator tried to talk to the man at 12:10 pm. During the conversation, a policeman broke one of the car's windows and two other officers pulled the driver from the vehicle.

Officers searched the vehicle and removed two red packages that were thought to have been homemade bombs. The area's streets were reopened to traffic and people were allowed to return at 12:30 pm.