The city's police said in a tweet that "somebody with a firearm is in the store, police are at the location with many (specialised) units to bring the situation under control".

Local broadcaster AT5 suggested the incident happened at an Apple store and that a person had been taken hostage.

Dutch police confirmed to Sky News that they were dealing with an incident with a person with a weapon "in or near a big electronic store" on the popular shopping street Leidseplein.

A further statement said they were releasing little information about "the situation in the Apple Store so as not to disturb our investigation and our deployment there".