Photo/Illutration Carlos Ghosn’s residence in Tokyo’s Minato Ward attracts attention on Jan. 2. (Satoru Semba)

A third American was apparently involved in the early phase of Carlos Ghosn’s dramatic flight from Japan to Lebanon, investigative sources said.

The U.S. man had booked the hotel room in Tokyo’s Roppongi district that the former Nissan Motor Co. chairman used after leaving his nearby home in Minato Ward on Dec. 29, the sources said.

The American, who is believed to be in his 20s, was present when two of his compatriots joined Ghosn at the hotel, they said.

Prosecutors are investigating the third man’s involvement in the international escapade, but he left for China after seeing Ghosn and the two other men off at the hotel, the sources said.

Investigators of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office and others suspect the two American men helped Ghosn hide in a large box disguised as baggage and enter a private jet that took off from Kansai International Airport in Osaka Prefecture.

The two men had arrived on a private jet at the same airport around 10 a.m. on Dec. 29, according to the sources. They brought two boxes into a hotel room near the airport.

Around 1 p.m., they took a Shinkansen bullet train from Shin-Osaka Station to Shinagawa Station in Tokyo, and checked into the hotel room in Roppongi around 4 p.m.

Ghosn apparently had entered the hotel room earlier and changed into a pair of jeans and sneakers, sources said.

Ghosn and the two men used a bullet train and taxis to arrive at the hotel near Kansai Airport around 8 p.m.

Before 10 p.m., the two men exited the hotel carrying two boxes, and then boarded the private jet bound for Istanbul, the sources said.