Transformers star Shia LaBeouf has been arrested at a performance of the musical Cabaret in New York.

The 28-year-old actor was charged with disorderly conduct and criminal trespass following a disturbance at New York's Studio 54 theatre on Thursday.

He was escorted out of the theatre and taken into custody by New York police after refusing to go when asked to do so by security guards.

A representative for LaBeouf could not be reached immediately for comment.

"The incident occurred at Studio 54 during Cabaret at around 9pm . He was acting disorderly, yelling and being loud, and is currently being held at the Midtown North police station," said a police spokesman.

"He will be taken to jail tonight and will then have to appear in court."

Broadway songwriter Benj Pasek tweeted that he saw LaBeouf "in handcuffs in tears surrounded by 6 police officers outside of CABARET the musical".

"He was being rather difficult and combative, verbally... to the point where security guards asked him to please leave the premises and he refused," NYPD's George Tsourovakas said. "Police were called and he was detained and arrested."

LaBeouf - whose films include Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - walked out of a news conference for Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac at the Berlin Film Festival in February.

He later appeared on the red carpet with a paper bag on his head, on which was written: "I am not famous anymore."

A month previously he had tweeted that he was quitting "public life". "In light of the recent attacks against my artistic integrity, I am retiring from all public life," he wrote in January.

The latest incident comes ahead of the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction, the first in the Michael Bay robot series not to star the actor.