Italian authorities have seized a migrant rescue boat, accusing its owner of aiding 'clandestine immigration'.

The 100ft-long vessel, operated by pro-migrant group Jugend Rettet, is currently being held at a Sicilian port.

The move comes after Italian lawmakers approved controversial plans to use warships to prevent migrant boats reaching Europe from Libya - a move branded a 'recipe for more suffering' by Amnesty International, which claims intercepted migrants could be at risk of torture.

A prosecutor in Trapani, Sicily, ordered the boat, named The Iuventa, should be put under a preventative seizure today

The Iuventa boat, belonging to German NGO Jugend Rettet is pictured docked at Lampedusa in Sicily

The boat's owners said they had not received any information about being the target of an investigation

A prosecutor in Trapani, Sicily, ordered the boat, named The Iuventa, should be put under a preventative seizure today.

Jugend Rettet, which carries out search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, tweeted the boat's crew was interviewed.

It said it had not received any information about being the target of an investigation.

A police statement said: 'Enquiries begun in October 2016, and conducted with the use of sophisticated techniques and investigative technology, have produced circumstantial evidence of the motorboat Iuventa being used for activities facilitating illegal immigration.'

The move came as Italian lawmakers voted to approve having Italian military vessels help Libya's coast guard stop migrant smuggling boats from leaving Libya for European shores.

Italy's defense minister insisted before Wednesday's vote in Parliament that the mission won't be a naval blockade, although lawmakers from the anti-migrant Northern League, an opposition party, demanded exactly that.

The boat is pictured carrying out a rescue operation in November last year. Italian authorities claim it has been involved in assisting illegal immigration

Thousands of migrants make the dangerous crossing from Libya to Europe each year

With several EU nations refusing to accept asylum-seekers to help ease Italy's burden, Italians' patience for the steady arrival of migrants rescued at sea appears to be wearing thin.

Hundreds of thousands of people, most of them economic migrants ineligible for asylum, have been brought ashore in Italy after rescue in the last few years.

The migrant crisis looms as a campaign issue in 2018 elections.

In response to Parliament's decision, Amnesty International's deputy Europe director, Gauri Van Gulik, said: 'The Italian authorities have shown today that they consider it more important to keep refugees and migrants away from their shores than to protect their lives and welfare.

'Facilitating the interception and return of refugees and migrants to Libya results in their arbitrary detention in centres where they are at almost certain risk of torture, rape and even of being killed, and today’s vote could make the Italian authorities complicit in these horrors.'

And he continued: 'This is not the answer to the humanitarian crisis in the central Mediterranean – it is a recipe for more suffering. Any cooperation with the Libyan authorities should prioritise monitoring and accountability for any human rights violations they have committed.'

