An angry community leader banned from speaking out at a city council meeting in eastern Ukraine bit off part of a security guard's little finger on Friday, a correspondent said.

The city council in the eastern Ukrainian city of Lugansk some 800 kilometres (500 miles) east of the capital Kiev was meeting to hear a proposal to move a popular food market from the city centre to the outskirts, when Mikhail Pashchuk, who is against the move, demanded to speak out.

A top city official leading the session asked Pashchuk to leave the meeting, prompting a guard to try to remove the activist from the room by force.

In the ensuing scuffle, Pashchuk hit the guard in the head several times and bit his hand, chomping off part of his little finger.

Pashchuk also bit the hands of several other guards who were trying to calm him down before making his exit.

Police detained the biter, who will now be examined by psychiatrists.

The guard who lost his fingertip was taken to a hospital where doctors were trying to re-attach it to the finger.