LAGOS, Nigeria — The Nigerian man accused of trying to bring down a U.S. airliner cut off contact with his relatives and disappeared from their lives until they awoke to news of the attempted Christmas Day attack, his family said today.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's father talked to Nigerian security agencies two months ago and a month later to foreign security agencies about his concerns that his son had disappeared and ceased contact with the family, the family said in a statement. U.S. authorities said that in November, Abdulmutallab's father visited the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, to discuss his concerns about his son's religious beliefs.

Abdulmutallab told U.S. officials who arrested him on the Detroit-bound airliner that he had sought extremist training at an Islamist hotbed in Yemen.

The family said the father had gone to authorities to ask them to bring his 23-year-old son home. "We provided them with all the information required of us to enable them do this," the family statement said, without elaborating.