Rejecting the claim of a former diplomat, a retired Canadian police officer has told the Kanishka Inquiry Commission that he was never given any warning about a possible terrorist threat to Air India Flight 182, just days before the 1985 bombing.

Former Canadian diplomat James Bartleman, who is currently the lieutenant-governor of Ontario, testified before the inquiry commission that he gave the warning to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer only to be rebuffed.

Bartleman never delivered any warning to me that an Air India plane was about to come under attack in the week leading up to the 1985 bombing, Lloyd Hickman told the inquiry commission on Monday.

Hickman, who matches the rough description of the man Bartleman said he passed on a specific warning about the June 1985 Air India bombing, told a public inquiry that it wasn't him.

Bartleman shocked the public inquiry earlier this month when he testified that he came across raw intelligence while working in the External Affairs department that contained a specific warning that an Air India flight leaving Canada would be bombed a week later.

Bartleman said he recalled taking the document to a nearby meeting on June 18 and asked to speak with the senior RCMP in the room.

"If he would have called me out of a meeting to talk to me, I would have remembered that," Hickman told the inquiry commission. "He did not. I had no conversation with him."

When he raised the document with the officer, Bartleman said he was rebuked and told the RCMP was already aware of the information.

The explosive testimony directly contradicted the government of Canada's long-held position that there was no specific warning that Air India was to be bombed at that time.

But Bartleman's failure to remember the name of the RCMP officer "it was an inspector or a sergeant, he recalled" has left the inquiry to search for the mystery officer.

Lloyd Hickman fits the description in some ways. He was in charge of VIP protection and was the senior officer at a June 18, 1985 meeting that discussed security threats against Indian targets in Canada.

Hickman served previously as a sergeant and was an inspector at the time of the meeting.

Taking the stand on Monday, Hickman said Bartleman never attended the June 18 meeting, nor did he pop in asking to speak with the senior RCMP officer. They never had an informal conversation either, he said.

Hickman said he did recall Bartleman attending a similar meeting on May 24 of that year, but at no time was there a discussion about specific threats against Air India. Hickman said he never came across such a threat prior to the bombing.

"I was the senior officer at that meeting on that day," Hickman told the inquiry under questioning from a federal government lawyer.

Hickman noted that he was only attending the meeting as a replacement for a superior and that he would have been respectful to senior officials from other departments.

"I was a junior inspector at the time," Hickman said. "If I would have acted in an unrespectful manner in any way, shape or form, it could have been a career-ending move for me. And I knew Bartleman. We had a good meeting the week before which I think he was very pleased with."