Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson.

AAP

FORMER world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport, police confirmed on Wednesday, after he was reported to have punched a photographer.

Police said the troubled 43-year-old had been detained following an altercation at the airport's terminal seven.

No further information was immediately available.

The Los Angeles Times reported on its website that the boxer, who once styled himself "the baddest man on the planet" was held after an "altercation."

Local broadcast reports said Tyson had struck a paparazzi photographer.

The incident comes after a difficult year for Tyson, who suffered personal tragedy in May when his four-year-old daughter died after accidentally strangling herself with a loose cord on a treadmill.

Tyson exploded on the boxing scene in the mid-1980s, becoming the youngest heavyweight champion in history in 1986 at the age of 20.

Considered unbeatable for the rest of the decade, Tyson's career went off the rails when he suffered a shock upset to James "Buster" Douglas in 1990.

In 1992, Tyson was convicted of raping a beauty queen at a pageant in Indianapolis, Indiana. He served three years of a six-year sentence and was released in 1995 - and has always denied raping the woman.

"Iron Mike" reclaimed the heavyweight throne but lost to Evander Holyfield in 1996 and notoriously bit Holyfield's ears twice in a 1997 rematch, adding banishment to his ridicule.

Tyson was jailed again in 1999 for assaulting two people following a traffic accident. Tyson filed for bankruptcy in 2003 and retired after losses to Britain's Danny Williams in 2004 and American Kevin McBride in 2005.

Tyson was also sentenced in 2007 to 24 hours in jail and three years of probation after pleading guilty to charges of drug possession and driving under the influence in Arizona.