A cabin crew member for the KLM airline is being tested for the hantavirus after showing mild symptoms and being admitted to hospital in Amsterdam, a Dutch health ministry spokesperson said.
The woman was undergoing tests in hospital, said the spokesperson, Mischa Stubenitsky.
RTL media reported that the woman had come into contact with a Dutch woman who was taken off a KLM plane and later died of the virus in South Africa.
KLM said yesterday that the passenger had been briefly on a flight from Johannesburg to the Netherlands, but was removed before take-off.
"Due to the passenger's medical condition at the time, the crew decided not to allow the passenger to travel on the flight," which was flight KL592 from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on 25 April at 11.15 pm local time.
"After the passenger was removed from the aircraft, the flight departed for the Netherlands," added KLM.
Dutch health authorities are contacting people on the flight "as a precaution," KLM said in its statement
It comes as countries scramble to also trace people who had left the cruise ship at the centre of a hantavirus outbreak before it got marooned off the coast of Cape Verde, in an effort to prevent further spread of the disease.
Three people, a Dutch couple and a German national, died in the outbreak on the MV Hondius. Eight people, including a Swiss citizen, are suspected of having contracted the virus, according to the World Health Organization.
The Dutch government said yesterday that around 40 passengers had disembarked the ship in Santa Helena - where the ship made a stop on its way to Cape Verde - before the outbreak was reported.
The whereabouts of many of these passengers are as yet unknown.
One of those to disembark was the wife of the Dutchman who had died aboard the ship on 11 April. She fell sick herself and died before she could reach the Netherlands.
Dutch airline KLM yesterday said it had taken the woman off a plane in Johannesburg on 25 April due to her deteriorating medical condition.
The Dutch couple had travelled through Chile, Uruguay and Argentina before boarding the Hondius, Argentina's health ministry said yesterday.
The ministry said that they had arrived in Argentina on 27 November, then travelled to Chile and Uruguay before returning to Argentina on 27 March to board the MV Hondius on 1 April.
The ministry did not speculate on where the pair may have contracted the virus but said it will carry out rodent trapping and analysis in the southern city of Ushuaia, the origin point of the cruise ship.
Three patients were evacuated from the ship yesterday. One of them has been admitted to a hospital in the Netherlands, while another one was transferred to Germany for medical care.
The plane carrying the third patient landed in the Netherlands this morning, after facing a delay due to a problem with the patient's life support system.
The body of a German passenger, who died from the virus, is still on the ship.
The virus found in the victims has been confirmed as the Andean strain, which can spread among humans through very close contact.
Experts have stressed that contagion is very rare, but the outbreak has put health authorities on high alert.
The United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said yesterday that it was closely monitoring the situation with US travellers on board the ship, adding that the risk to the American public was extremely low at the time.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said that one French citizen had been in contact with a person who had fallen ill, but they were not currently showing symptoms.
The Hondius, with nearly 150 people on board, is expected to dock in Tenerife, in Spain's Canary Islands, by Saturday.
Once in Tenerife, if they are still healthy, all non-Spanish citizens will be repatriated to their countries, while 14 Spanish passengers will be quarantined in a military hospital in Madrid.
Plans being developed for care of Irish passengers
Ireland's Department of Health said plans are being developed to manage the care of two Irish passengers on the cruise ship on their return to Ireland.
It said decisions with regard to where they will quarantine will be on a case-by-case basis and that if they become symptomatic they will be assessed and treated as appropriate.
A consultant in Infectious Diseases at the National Isolation Unit at the Mater University Hospital said the the two Irish people are waiting for clinical assessments, which would determine the next steps.
"What we do also know at the moment is that everybody on board the ship seems to be asymptomatic," Professor Christine Kelly said.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, she said the National Isolation Unit is ready in case there was an outbreak.
"We work really closely with the Department of Health on an ongoing basis to prepare for all eventualities of what we call high-consequence infectious diseases.
"There are really robust plans in place for these scenarios. We simulate them, we train for them. That's what we're doing in the background all the time when we don't have outbreaks."
Prof Kelly said they are waiting for further guidance from the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) on isolation regulations for those who have come into contact with the virus.
"There seems to be guidance from the ECDC which is recommending isolation for people on the ship," she said.
"(For how long) hasn't been confirmed yet and we're still waiting for further guidance."
