A serious shooting incident has been reported at a high school in western Finland.

Police have said the gunman, a 20-year-old student at the school in the southwestern town of Kauhajoki, has been disarmed.

Local media are reporting that 'many people' have been killed. Finnish television channel YLE said a teacher witnessed at least 10 people being shot.

Around 200 pupils at the trade school were evacuated.

"We expect many people have been injured," said a police spokesman.

The level of gun ownership in Finland is among the highest in the world.

In November 2007, a Finnish high school student shot dead eight people before killing himself at Jokela, 40 miles north of Helsinki.

That incident at Jokela, 35 miles from Helsinki, triggered a series of threats against schools in Finland and its Nordic neighbours.

The killer, 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen, was a social outcast who was bullied.

He chose his victims at random after posting plans for the attack with a legally-owned .22 automatic pistol on YouTube. The dead included the school's headmistress and nurse.

The incident led to a re-assessment of Finland's laws on gun ownership. The country was unaccustomed to deadly shootings although it has a high rate of gun ownership.

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