The "item of concern" that caused a lockdown in Auckland's CBD on Thursday evening is believed to have been a rice cooker.

Cordons were put in place around the intersection of Queen and Wakefield St around 7pm on Thursday after the kitchen appliance was discovered unattended on the street.

A bomb disposal robot was dispatched and a controlled explosion took place at 7:35pm.

At the time the item was reported to be a slow cooker, but further calls to police on Friday morning revealed it's believed to be a rice cooker.

Kitchen appliances left unattended on city streets have been cause for concern for authorities in the past as they can be used to make bombs.

Pressure cookers were used during the bombing at the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon, and a man who left rice cookers in Manhattan subway stations caused chaos in New York in August.

Subway lines were suspended and citizens were left shaken after coming into contact with the cookers.

"Going to work in the morning, thinking that everything's OK, and you run into something like this, it's scary," New Jersey resident Michael Oji told AP News at the time.

Newshub.