Police in Italy are searching for two English-speaking tourists who posed naked for photographs in a fountain at a monument in Rome commemorating the country's war dead.

The pair were filmed posing for photographs in the fountain at the Altare della Patria, or Alter of the Fatherland, which commemorates the reunification of Italy and holds the tomb of an unknown soldier killed in the First World War.

In the footage, one of the men pulls down his underwear, tucks his genitals between his legs and poses in the fountain in PIazza Venezia.

Police have enlisted the help of foreign consulates to identify the men, according to local media reports.

They said the gesture "seriously offends the national sentiment and memory of the fallen to whom the monument is dedicated".

Italy's interior minister, Matteo Salvini, shared an article containing footage of the men on Twitter and said: "I would know how to 'educate' these idiots if they get caught, Italy is not their bathroom!"