An Algerian asylum seeker has been arrested in Germany after allegedly warning fellow migrants last week of an imminent attack in Paris, a spokesman for the prosecutor has said.

The Associated Press reports that the unidentified 39-year-old man was detained at a refugee shelter in the western German town of Arnsberg, after two Syrian men contacted police on Saturday.

According to Werner Wolff, a spokesman for the Arnsberg prosecutors office, the witnesses were told by the man that Paris would be subjected to "fear and terror".