AN al-Qaida linked terrorist known as The Engineer made the exploding shoes that prosecutors say Briton Richard Reid wore in a plot to blow up an transatlantic airliner. Officials believe whoever helped Reid may have left evidence behind, including a strand of hair and a palm print in one of his shoes, said ABC News.

Reid, a former petty criminal from London who converted to Islam, is being held in a Massachusetts jail awaiting trial.

He was flying from Paris to Miami on American Airlines on December 22 when he allegedly tried to set off explosives in his shoes with a match.

Passengers and airline staff grabbed him before he could detonate the device.

The plane was diverted to Boston, where Reid was arrested.

The sophisticated design required no wires or metal, making the explosives virtually impossible to detect by airport security, sources told ABC who obtained the first photographs of the shoes.

"The explosives were extremely sophisticated and there's no question that this was not something he did by himself," said Matthew Levitt, a former FBI analyst and counter terrorism expert.

"Reid was a mule."

ABC said intelligence officials suspect Reid had support from bin Laden associates operating throughout Europe.

"Reid indeed depended upon a pretty extensive European network that so far remains pretty mysterious," said Alexis Debat, formerly of the French defence ministry.

Investigators believe Reid was aided by terrorists in both France and Belgium with ties to Djamel Beghal.

Beghal is currently being held in prison in France and is suspected of planning an attack on the US embassy in Paris.

European investigators suspect Reid travelled to a terrorist safe house in Belgium to pick up the explosives.

They say he then made his way to France to meet a man code-named The Engineer, who was supposed to be an explosives expert who helped design the shoe bomb.

"The funding, the material, the know-how all indicate that there was someone or some group behind this," said Levitt.

"And it appears to be al-Qaida."