We report the results of a high temporal resolution spectroscopic monitoring of the flare star AD Leo. During 4 nights, more than 600 spectra were taken in the optical range using the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) and the Intermediate Dispersion Spectrograph (IDS). We observed a large number of short and weak flares occurring very frequently (flare activity > 0.71 h-1). This is consistent with the very important role that flares can play in stellar coronal heating. The detected flares are non white-light flares and, although most solar flares are of this kind, very few such events have been observed previously in stars. The behaviour of different chromospheric lines (Balmer series from Hα to H{11}, Ca II H & K, Na I D1 and D2, He I 4026 Å and He I D3) was studied in detail for a total of 14 flares. We estimated the physical parameters of the flaring plasma by using a procedure that assumes a simplified slab model of flares. All the obtained physical parameters are consistent with previously derived values for stellar flares, and the areas - less than 2.3% of the stellar surface - are comparable with the size inferred for other solar and stellar flares. We studied the relationships between the physical parameters and the area, duration, maximum flux and energy released during the detected flares.