ZURICH - Swiss police have arrested a 28-year-old Australian man suspected of stabbing and seriously injuring a 41-year-old man in a shop in central Zurich, authorities said.

The motive for the attack on Saturday is still under investigation, police said in a statement. The Australian was arrested at the scene and the victim taken to hospital.

Police declined to give further details on the identity of the victim and the perpetrator. Prosecutors could provide more information on Monday, a police spokesperson said.

A number of stabbings have caused alarm in Europe in recent days, with an Algerian man arrested on Saturday in Mulhouse, France over a deadly knife attack, while a Syrian refugee was detained over a stabbing at Berlin's Holocaust memorial.

On Thursday, a teenaged attacker killed two women with a knife in a shopping centre in the Czech city of Hradec Kralove.

Last Saturday, a Syrian asylum seeker was arrested on suspicion of going on a stabbing rampage in southern Austria.

Reuters