The Swiss city of Geneva has raised its alert level and says it's looking for suspects who, according to national officials, have possible links to terrorism.
A security guard at the United Nations' European headquarters told Reuters that Swiss authorities were searching for four men believed to be in or near the city.
Another guard said the UN compound was on maximum alert, and Geneva prosecutors said they were investigating the preparation of criminal acts.
Separately, the Swiss attorney-general said they'd opened a criminal inquiry on the basis of a "terrorist threat in Geneva" against unknown persons suspected of belonging to a criminal organisation and of violating the ban on al-Qaeda or Islamic State operating in the country.
The Geneva daily Le Temps reported that a friend of Salah Abdeslam, the latter wanted in connection with the deadly Paris attacks on November 13, was in a van spotted by Geneva police on Tuesday after a tip from French authorities that the two men in the car were strongly suspected of ties to radical Islam.
The van, which had Belgian plates, crossed the border into France, the paper said.
Geneva officials could not confirm the report.
A French police source said Swiss authorities had been in touch to ask for information about some suspects, including photographs.
Swiss federal police in the capital Berne said they had passed on information about people with possible links to terrorism, but we re not connecting them to Islamist militant attacks in Paris last month in which 130 people were killed.
Earlier, the newspaper Le Matin said a Belgian-registered car that drove through a police check prompted police to examine a photograph of four suspected Islamist militants provided by the US Central Intelligence Agency.
The paper said it had obtained a document describing the men as "armed and dangerous".
Two sources confirmed that the CIA had provided the photo, which shows the four bearded men seated, with their faces blurred but index fingers raised in the air.
A CIA spokesman in Washington declined to comment.
Swiss television said the city's Jewish community had been told to be vigilant.
"Sensitive sites have been alerted," a Swiss official said.
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