Police in the Netherlands have arrested two men suspected of plotting a Christmas suicide bomb plot by ISIS.

Dutch prosecutors say the plot involved a terror attack using suicide vests and one or more car bombs.

The National Prosecutor’s Office said the two men, aged 20 and 34, were arrested by anti-terror squads on Monday.

The men are suspected of plotting an attack around the end of the year, though the exact target is not clear.

Prosecutors said on Tuesday that police who arrested the men and searched their homes found no explosives or firearms.

An axe and a dagger were found concealed above the ceiling in one of the men’s homes in the town of Zoetermeer, about 10 kilometers east of The Hague.

A mobile phone and several SIM cards were also discovered.

Undercover police had been monitoring the men after they became known to the homeland intelligence service AIVD.

Both suspects were interviewed on Tuesday and are due to appear at court in Rotterdam on Thursday.

On Tuesday a Dutch national pleaded guilty in the UK to a New Year's Eve's terror attack in Manchester last year.

Mahdi Mohamud, 26, attacked commuters and police at Manchester Victoria railway station and attempted to murder three people by stabbing them with a knife, one was a police officer.