A package addressed to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi caught fire during a police check at Italy's Bologna airport, local media reported on Wednesday.

The package had been put on a TNT cargo plane from Athens, which was bound for Paris. The plane was ordered to land at Bologna airport after police was informed of a suspect package on the flight.

The police were still investigating what kind of explosive substance caused the fire of the parcel, whose sender was anonymous.

The latest incident came just several hours after German authorities reported that a package found in the German Chancellery did contain "explosive device" and its mechanism seemed like the one mailed to the Swiss embassy in Greece earlier Tuesday.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere confirmed Tuesday evening that the parcel bomb, addressed to Chancellor Angela Merkel, was sent by air mail on Sunday and arrived at the mail office of Merkel's Chancellery at about 1 p.m. local time.

The minister told reporters that the parcel bomb were similar with those discovered in Athens earlier in the day, both in appearance and technology.

He added that according to current information, the incident had no link with failed parcel bomb plot last week, when several disguised parcel bombs was mailed to the United States by Yemen cargo flights and finally intercepted by British and Dubai police.