A Federal judge sentenced a Nigerian man to life in prison for trying to blow up a US airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.

"This was an act of terrorism that cannot be quibbled with," said US District Judge Nancy Edmunds, who imposed the maximum sentence allowed.

A bomb hidden in the underwear of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, now 25, caused a fire but failed to explode on a Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam carrying 289 people on December 25.

Abdulmutallab, who wore a white T-shirt and skull cap, sat impassively as the sentence was read out in a crowded Detroit court room.

Earlier, he used a four-minute address to the court to repeat that his attack was intended to avenge "the attacks of the United States on Muslims."

"The jihadi is proud to kill in the name of God and that is exactly what God told us to do in the Koran," said Abdulmutallab, who had pleaded guilty in October.