We present in this paper a differential-geometric approach to the problem of fault detection and isolation for nonlinear systems. A necessary condition for the problem to be solvable is derived in terms of an unobservability distribution, which is computable by means of suitable algorithms. The existence and regularity of such a distribution implies the existence of changes of coordinates in the state and in the output space which induce an "observable" quotient subsystem unaffected by all fault signals but one, For this subsystem, a fault detection filter is designed.