Investigators have arrested a middle-aged man searching for a woman after the pair allegedly stole and damaged religious items at a mosque on Mountlake Terrace in Washington state.

A police spokesman said the incident, which was captured on surveillance cameras, happened at about 16:00 local time on Tuesday( 19/10). Mountlake Terrace Police Commander Pat Lowe said the two allegedly broke into the Umar Al-Farooq Mosque at 238th Southwest Street.

At that time the mosque was open to the public. However, the couple instead walked into a restricted area where they allegedly broke into a closet and searched for valuables. The two then took some prayer mats and a Koran, put them in a garbage bag, and threw them in a nearby trash can outside.

According to Lowe, a man in his 50s was later arrested and put in the Snohomish County Jail. The woman, described as being in her late 40s or early 50s, remains at large. Police have circulated photos of the female suspect taken from mosque security footage.

Lowe continued, the mosque officials are still checking the damage. He said investigators did not rule out the possibility that Tuesday's robbery was a hate crime or a bias-motivated offense that could lead to harsher penalties.

"It's very early in the investigation, it's hard to call it a hate crime or a bias-based crime at this point. We don't have anything to say right now, but we're not ruling that out," Lowe told the Seattle Times.

The incident came eight days after someone is believed to have set fire to the Tacoma Islamic Center, which has caused widespread damage to the mosque. In September, a Sikh temple on the Federal Way, Gurmat Khalsa Center, was also searched and broken into.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, in a statement on Wednesday, called on police to investigate the incident on Mountlake Terrace as a hate crime. CAIR-Washington Executive Director Imraan Siddiqi said it was a troubling incident marked not only by robbery, but also with hatred by throwing The Koran and other religious items in the trash.

"Houses of worship should be places where our communities can come together and feel safe, rather than having to see a series of hate incidents across our state last month," Siddiqi said.