Five Afghans held in Rome

ROME, Italy (CNN) -- Italian authorities have detained five Afghan men for questioning, the Italian Interior Ministry said.

They were stopped near the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican on Monday.

A ministry representative said the men had with them maps of Rome with an itinerary marked on them.

The American embassy, located in one of Rome's more exclusive neighbourhoods, on the Aventine Hill, said it was looking into the reports of the arrests.

The new U.S. ambassador to the Holy See recently took up his post and met with Pope John Paul II to present his credentials earlier this month.

The arrests came as part of stepped-security in the wake of the terrorism attacks in the United States but the Italian authorities were not more specific about how the arrests came to be made.

The five men had no identification on them and some Arab-language papers, plus a map of Rome with some places on the map indicated, an interior ministry spokesman, Daniela Pugliese, told the Associated Press.

The five had not been charged on Monday evening.