An Irish tourist has admitted to causing damage in the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz.

A local prosecutor has confirmed to RTÉ that the tourist was detained by security guards at the site last Sunday after scratching their name on a wall at the site.

The prosecutor said the tourist was taken by car to the police station in the nearby town of Oświęcim, where he was charged, in the presence of a translator, with breaching Article 335 of the Polish Penal Code.

The tourist immediately admitted to defacing the memorial and agreed to a punishment, which will be made public after a court hearing, according to the Oświęcim prosecutor's office.

The use of an accelerated process means that the person, whose name was not released by the prosecutor, will not have to return for the hearing.

The court process will not conclude for anther two months.

Earlier the Polish press agency PAP reported that the tourist is a 38-year-old Irish man who scratched his name onto a wall after he saw other names written on the wall.

Over 1.1 million people were killed by the Nazis at Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945. They included Jews, Poles, Roma and Sinti people, Soviet prisoners of war and Jehovah's Witnesses.