A mask depicting democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been listed as "terrorist costume" on Amazon.com.

Up until Sunday night, when a user searched for "terrorist costume" on Amazon.com, the online retailer listed a $49.95 Barack Obama mask in the returned results.

The listing has since been removed but the Belfast Telegraph managed to get a screengrab of the listing before it was taken down.

Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith said the offensive category was put there by someone using its "tag" feature, which allows users to add keywords to products so that others can more easily search the site.

Smith says Amazon learned about the tag last night and removed it immediately.

Blogs and social networking sites have poked fun at the tagging faux pas.

One poster said: "I was actually going to buy the Sarah Palin mask for Halloween as it is much cheaper. However I soon abondoned the idea when I realised I wouldn't be able to afford the clothes to go with it."