The raids followed an announcement by French authorities on Wednesday that nine Kurds were charged with terror offences following their arrest last week for allegedly recruiting fighters for the armed PKK separatist group.

"An operation is under way in the Kurdish community across the whole country," federal Belgian prosecutors' spokeswoman Lieve Pellens told AFP. The operation "is not finished," she added. "We will give out more details this afternoon."

In Ankara, the Firat news agency, which is close to the PKK, reported that those detained included Remzi Kartal and Zubeyir Aydar, known as top figures coordinating PKK activities in Europe. Both are former Turkish parliament members.

In October, the US Treasury Department put Aydar on a list of "significant" foreign drug traffickers, along with two other PKK leaders, saying that they were using drug smuggling to help fund the PKK.

French-speaking Belgian public radio RTBF said some 300 officers descended on Brussels, Antwerp and other Belgian cities, including at the offices of Kurdish international TV station Roj TV in the northern city of Denderleeuw.

An AFP correspondent in Diyarbakir, the largest city of the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey where Roj TV is widely watched, also said that the channel's broadcast was cut on Thursday.

Seven of the nine French-based suspects were remanded in custody following charges that included taking part in a terrorist enterprise, financing terrorist activities and violating gun laws.

The French raids were part of an investigation launched in 2008 into activities linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been fighting for an independent Kurdish homeland for more than two decades.

French police said they suspected links with Kurdish groups in Germany, Belgium and Italy.

Considered a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States, the PKK took up arms against Ankara in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.