SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA: North Korea says it has arrested an American university student for alleged anti-state acts.

Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency reported on Friday that authorities are investigating the student who it says entered the North as a tourist.

The KCNA news agency added that the person entered North Korea as a tourist and was "was caught committing a hostile act against the state," which it said was "tolerated and manipulated by the US government".

It says the university student allegedly plotted to undermine the North's system and that has links to the US government.

An official at the US embassy in the South Korean capital Seoul said it was aware of the reported arrest.

A South Korean-born Canadian pastor was arrested in North Korea last year and given a life sentence for subversion. Earlier this month, a Korean-American man told CNN in Pyongyang that he was being held by the state for spying.

South Korea warned that the United States and its allies were working on further sanctions to inflict "bone-numbing pain" on the North after its latest nuclear test this month, in contravention of UN Security Council resolutions, and urged China to do its part to rein in its isolated neighbour.

Earlier this month, CNN reported that North Korea had detained another US citizen on suspicion of spying.

KCNA did not immediately give an English version of the student's name.