Police arrested three men and were hunting for two more after a spectacular jewellery heist at the Ritz Hotel in Paris in which a reported four million euros of precious stones were robbed.

Five men burst into the fabled hotel at around 6.30pm local time on Wednesday evening and smashed display cases in a jewellery shop inside the premises, according to police who did not initially confirm media reports that they were armed with guns and axes. Various witnesses claim to have heard gunfire during the raid.

The robbers made their escape from the Place Vendome, on which the hotel is located, on scooters but soon ran into a police patrol.

Officers managed to arrest three of them but two more escaped. A huge police operation was under way to find the remaining two suspects.

"We heard a loud noise and lots of racket in the street," one hotel employee told AFP. "Passers-by took refuge in the hotel. We didn't know what was going on until someone told us there had been a robbery."