BRUSSELS, May 25 (AFP) - European Union leaders cut Europe's air links with Belarus on Monday (May 24), as strongman Alexander Lukashenko's regime paraded a dissident journalist arrested after his flight was forced to land in Minsk.

Lukashenko sparked international outrage by dispatching a fighter jet on Sunday to intercept a Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius carrying wanted reporter Roman Protasevich, 26, and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega.

European leaders meeting in Brussels called for the release of the pair and hit back at Minsk by agreeing to ban Belarusian airlines from the bloc and urging EU-based carriers not to fly over its airspace.

The leaders also warned they would adopt further "targeted economic sanctions" against the Belarusian authorities to add to the 88 regime figures and seven companies already on a blacklist over a crackdown on opposition.

The move came as Belarusian state television broadcast a 30-second video of Protasevich, who had been living between Lithuania and Poland, confirming that he was in prison in Minsk and "confessing" to charges of organising mass unrest.

US President Joe Biden slammed the forced diversion of the plane and arrest of Protasevich as "a direct affront to international norms" and said the video appeared to have been made "under duress".

"I welcome the news that the European Union has called for targeted economic sanctions and other measures, and have asked my team to develop appropriate options to hold accountable those responsible," Biden said, in a White House statement.

The forced landing of an airliner flying between EU nations has refocused attention on the festering political crisis in Belarus, where Lukashenko has unleashed waves of brutal repression to cling to power.

Western leaders accused Belarusian authorities of essentially hijacking a European plane, while Minsk claimed it had reacted to secure the flight after receiving a bomb threat.

The EU's push to punish Minsk followed announcements from some nations and airlines that they were cutting links to Belarus.

Belarus has insisted it acted legally over the grounding of the Ryanair jet, accusing the West of making "unfounded accusations" for political reasons.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres backed calls for a "full, transparent and independent investigation into this disturbing incident".

The EU and other Western countries have already imposed a wide range of sanctions on Lukashenko's government over its crackdown on opposition demonstrations that followed his disputed re-election to a sixth term last August.