A passport stolen from a Bermudian was at the centre of an immigration court case in the United Arab Emirates.

Miriam Mumodu, a 26-year-old Nigerian woman, used a stolen British passport issued in Bermuda to get into the UAE, according to Gulf News.com.

But she was caught trying to leave for a new life and job promise in Canada.

The passport's owner Fanaye Broadbelt told the Gulf News that she had been shocked to hear that her passport had been used by a Nigerian in the UAE.

The 26-year-old Bermudian said: "My passport was stolen in 2005 out of a car when I was on a trip to London.

"I reported it as lost, along with all of my credit cards. I was issued a new passport and that was the end of that, or so I thought."

It is unknown how the British passport made its way to Nigeria.

But Broadbelt said: "There are a lot of Nigerians living in London and it could be that someone took it back to sell it there."

A UAE court heard that on February 20, Mumodu left Lagos, Nigeria and entered Dubai through the airport using a British passport.

Six days later she travelled to Abu Dhabi International Airport, hoping that the British passport would take her to her final destination, Toronto in Canada, where she was promised a job.

But passport control noticed that Mumodu's face, although similar, did not match the picture on the British passport. The authorities made some inquiries and determined the passport was stolen.

The police were called and Mumodu was questioned. When she realised that her plans had crumbled, she confessed in court that it was not her passport and that she was a Nigerian who had left Nigeria for a better life in Canada.

She did not know that Ms Broadbelt would report the passport missing and that she would be flagged whenever she used it.

Mumodu was jailed for six-months with an order for her to be deported after completing her sentence and to never return to the UAE.

Her eyes were scanned in case she tries to come back using a different passport and identification.

She is one of hundreds of people from mostly Asia and Africa who enter the UAE using stolen or fake passports in pursuit of a new life.

In 2007, 533 people were caught and tried in the UAE using fake or stolen passports according to the Ministry of Interior.