The fingerprints of Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam have been found in a flat raided by police in Brussels this week.

He was probably one of two people who evaded arrest during a shootout as the building was stormed, according to Belgian public broadcaster RTBF. But this was not confirmed by officials.

One Islamist gunman - an Algerian national - was shot dead by a police sniper at the scene.

DNA belonging to the Abdeslam, who has been on the run since the 13 November attacks, was also reportedly discovered by Belgian officers during Tuesday's raid.

The flat in the Forest area of the city was targeted because officers believed it was rented under the same false identity as a hideout used by the Paris attackers in the southern Belgian city of Charleroi.

Abdeslam, a 26-year-old Brussels-born Frenchman, is believed to have played a key logistical role in the attacks on the French capital in which 130 people were killed. His older brother Brahim was a suicide bomber.

The younger Abdeslam was driven back to Brussels from Paris hours later by two friends - Mohammed Amri and Hamza Attou.

The three men were stopped near the border by French police but then released, as Abdeslam had not yet been connected to the attacks.

Abdeslam arrived in Brussels on 14 November later and was met by someone else and then police admit they "lost him".

Since then he has been the subject of an international manhunt.

Belgian federal prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt said it was not clear if Abdeslam was one of the two men who escaped from the Brussels apartment.

He said it was not clear yet how old the fingerprints are or how long Abdeslam spent there.

Responsibility for the Paris attacks was claimed by extremists from the so-called Islamic State.

The gunman killed in the Brussels flat was initially identified as Mohamed Belkaid, an IS member whose details were included in documents obtained by Sky News, but Belgian TV reported on Friday that he also went under the assumed name Samir Bouzid.

Bouzid has been on French and Belgian wanted lists since he was linked to a cash transfer to a woman killed with other suspects in the Paris attacks five days after they took place.