CAIRO -- A French architect has been accused of smuggling Pharaonic-era antiquities out of Egypt and remanded in custody for 45 days, police said Thursday.

Stephane Rousseau, 42, was arrested in the airport of the northern city of Alexandria last weekend, when custom officers found in his luggage 144 coins and a collection of ushebtis -- small statues placed in tombs by the ancient Egyptians.

According to police sources, Rousseau says he bought them from a retailer, thinking they were copies and not authentic.

The architect was member of two missions -- Alexandria's renowned Centre d'Etudes Alexandrines (CEA) and the German team tasked with the restoration of the 60-foot (18-meter) high Colossus of Memnon statue in Luxor, Upper Egypt.

CEA head Jean-Yves Empereur told AFP he was "shocked" and felt Rousseau had "betrayed his trust". But he cautioned that the items found in his luggage still needed to be appraised.

If they were found to be genuine, the incident would be regarded as very serious as Rousseau had been traveling to Egypt since 1992.

From 1992 to 1998, he took part in the excavation of Tanis, in the Nile Delta, and then moved to the CEA, plotting the underwater remains of the Alexandria Lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

His arrest comes as the head of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, has embarked on a drive to claim back Egyptian treasures taken to Western museums in the 19th century.

Hawass has asked the British Museum to "lend" Cairo the Rosetta Stone, a basalt slab found in 1799 which allowed French scholar Jean-Francois Champollion to decipher hieroglyphic characters.

From Germany, Hawass is claiming the restitution of Queen Nefertiti's bust, and his claims could soon extend to the Louvre, in Paris. Empereur reckons that the Rousseau affair comes at a bad moment. "As soon as people arrive here to work, we tell them not to touch the smallest piece of broken glass. How could he do such a thing?"