ORLANDO, Fla. -- An Orlando woman couldn't believe it when she noticed the man next to her on her flight was hiding a monkey. He snuck it on the plane at Orlando International Airport, but got a quick exit when she notified the flight attendant.

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The woman believes the man had his shirt un-tucked with the underneath and may have gone through security with no one knowing about the monkey.

"I was shocked. I couldn't believe it," Mikie Mallory told Eyewitness News.

Last week, the man in seat 6F snuck a monkey on board, she said.

"It was like a fanny pack, but it was a big one, a bigger pouch. Like this around his waist. And he opened it up and was playing with something and I look over at him and I see this hair. And he says, 'It's my pet monkey.' And I'm thinking, oh, no it's not," she said.

Mallory informed flight attendants and the man and his monkey were quickly removed from the Cleveland-bound Continental flight, which was still at the gate, but not before the incident raised questions about how a man smuggles a monkey similar onto an airplane.

"Whether the monkey came through security overtly or covertly, the monkey was screened," said Transportation and Security Administration spokesperson Sari Koshetz.

The TSA said it's not illegal to bring pets through security and whether they board a plane is between the passenger and the airline. Continental clearly did not know about the monkey.

"It could have been really dangerous, being in flight in the air and a commotion happening like that," Mallory said.

Pets can go through security checkpoints and passengers carry pets through security all the time. This case is more a matter of the man violating Continental Airlines' policies and possibly putting passengers in danger, but he's facing no criminal charges.