Security sources told Reuters the detainees from the Muslim Brotherhood were aiming to plant explosive devices to disrupt shipping.
One of the arrested men is an employee of the canal authority.
Prosecutors have ordered they be held for 15 days.
Bombs had been planted in sanitation and electricity facilities, as well as on beaches, they added.
Last year, Egypt sentenced a group of 26 people to death for plotting terror attacks on ships in the canal.
