A Spanish court has ordered the detention of a man from Ivory Coast who allegedly hid his eight-year-old son inside a closed suitcase in an attempt to smuggle him into Europe.

A police statement said guards stopped a 19-year-old Moroccan woman who looked nervous as she waited in line at the land border crossing in Ceuta, a Spanish city enclave in North Africa.

When the guards put her suitcase through a scanner, they detected the boy curled up inside.

Border officers detained the woman and later the boy's father at the same border crossing. The woman is married to the child's father.

A Ceuta magistrate ordered the father held on charges of human rights abuse.