A woman in north-east London had ordered shampoo online but instead received 20 brand new US passports. When Nicole Mitchell, 46, opened the DHL package, she was stunned to find the confidential documents destined for the US Embassy.

Mitchell, school administrator and mother of one, said that when she contacted DHL staff they claimed it to be a human error and told her that the parcel with passports was next to the one with her £35 (Dh180) order for shampoo and other cosmetic products and was wrongly labelled. Mitchell said, "There was a label on the box saying US Embassy London but someone - who I don't know why - stuck an identical label on top with IHerb on."

Realising the gravity of the error, Mitchell called up police to seek help but claimed that the officer asked her to dump the passports in a bin before their supervisor backtracked on the advice.

Mitchell was quoted as saying in Daily Mail, "It's a massive security breach - there's terrorism all over the world - what if they had gone into the hands or a terrorist?"

She added, "I was more frightened and perturbed because nobody wanted to explain it to me."

Later, the passports were collected by staff at the US Embassy who arrived at her home several hours later in the night on Easter Saturday.

Doubting the DHL staff, Mitchell said it could be the work of fraudsters working at the parcel company. "It could be that it was somebody inside DHL trying to commit a fraud and would get someone to kick my door in for the passports or it could be a genuine human error - but I think I deserve an explanation from DHL," she said.

Further, Mitchell's original order had still not been delivered when she called DHL a couple of days later to complain about the incident.

A US Embassy spokesperson said, "It appears that the courier service contracted to deliver these passports mislabelled the shipping box, and we are investigating this matter thoroughly to ensure a mistake like this does not happen again."

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