Five men have been detained on suspicion of planning an attack on a Christmas market in southern Germany, the public prosecutor in Munich said on Saturday.

Formal arrest warrants were issued for four of the men, while one was taken into preventive custody for the suspected plans to attack a Christmas market in the Dingolfing area in the south of the state of Bavaria, the prosecutor said.

Prosecutors currently suspect an Islamist motivation for the attack, possibly to be carried out using a vehicle.

The public prosecutor's office stressed the presumption of innocence on Saturday evening.

The mass-circulation Bild newspaper had earlier reported on the case.

The arrests are believed to have taken place on Friday, and the men were then brought before the magistrate on Saturday.

According to the public prosecutor's office, the men are a 56-year-old Egyptian, a 37-year-old Syrian and three Moroccans aged 22, 28 and 30. According to the preliminary state of investigations, the Egyptian is said to have called for an attack in a mosque in the Dingolfing-Landau area.

When the attack was supposed to take place or how concrete the plans were, was initially unclear.

Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told Bild: "Thanks to the excellent cooperation of our security authorities, several suspects could be arrested in a very short time, thereby preventing a potentially Islamist-motivated attack in Bavaria."

He added that the background to this must now be clarified.