Spanish police have arrested nine men suspected of seeking to have a woman killed after they accused her of adultery, claiming they were following Islamic law, authorities said on Sunday.

The men were arrested on November 14 and seven have been held in jail, a police spokesman said.

According to police, the woman had been taken in March and held in an isolated house in Valls in northeastern Catalonia.

Authorities say the men set up a court there to judge her for adultery.

"These men had formed a kind of court to apply (Islamic) sharia law," the spokesman said, adding the woman told authorities she was tried and sentenced to death.

She was later able to escape and report what happened to police.