At least two people are reported to have been killed in a car bombing near a courthouse in the Turkish city of Izmir.

A police officer and member of the city's courthouse staff died as a result of the attack, Anadolu Agency reported.

CNN Turk said that police had identified the car as a threat when it stopped at a checkpoint and tried to disable it before the assailants set it off anyway.

Two suspected attackers were killed in an ensuing gun battle, and a third is believed to still be on the run.

At least 10 people have been injured in the incident, District Mayor Hasan Karadag said earlier. He blamed the incident on the militant Kurdish separatist group known as the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) and said that the police had stopped a possibly more serious attack on the courthouse itself.

Izmir, a port city on the Aegean Sea, has been the focus of police and special forces' attention this week as authorities continue their search for a gunman who killed 39 people in the New Year's Eve attack on an Istanbul nightclub.

Several arrests have been made in the city in connection to the attack. Police believe the suspect stayed there for three weeks before travelling to Istanbul, and may have had accomplices who helped him plan the assault.