Brendt Christensen, charged with kidnapping a visiting Chinese scholar in the United States, was ordered held without bail on Wednesday by a US federal judge in Urbana, Illinois.

During the hearing in the District Court for the Central District of Illinois, US Magistrate Eric Long said that Christensen, 28, presented a danger to the community and was a flight risk.

Christensen, who has a master's degree in physics from the University of Illinois, was arrested on June 30 on a charge of kidnapping Zhang Yingying, a 26-year-old student at the same school.