The incident took place at 1530 GMT on Saturday on the Diyarbakir-Bingol highway.

The rebels took a 35-year-old tourist to a rural area in the northeast of Kurdish majority Diyarbakir, said the sources.

The abduction followed a recent increase in activity by the rebel group, which last month kidnapped 10 villagers from Bayirli village in the southeast. The motive was unknown.

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of the international community, took up arms in Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.