A man from the Italian city of Turin has been arrested for committing crimes similar to those of the Austrian rapist Josef Fritzl.

The news has been announced by the BGNES news agency which quotes the Italian newspaper "La Republica".

The arrested 63-year-old junk vendor has been raping his daughter (who is now 34) for 25 years. He first raped her when she was nine years old, and after she turned 13, he kept her locked as a prisoner in a dark room, and continued raping her on a regular basis.

The arrested father rapist told the investigators that his family had a tradition in which the oldest daughter became a "fiancee" of the father. He even made his son "observe" the same tradition.

The 40-year-old son has also been arrested. He is charged with raping and mistreating all of his four daughters aged 6, 8, 12, and 20, and with forcing all of them to watch while he had sex with any one of them.

The investigation started in October 2008, after the 34-year-old woman, given the pseudonym "Laura" in the Italian press, filed a complaint against her brother accusing him of raping her for two weeks after she fled her father's house.

She and her four nieces have been placed under psychological care.

The Italian case is not unlike the case of the Austrian rapist, Josef Fritzl, who recently received a life sentence for raping for 24 years his daughter, who gave birth to seven children.