AMERICAN OFFICIALS HAVE confirmed that a travel alert is to be issued to US citizens travelling to Europe following the threat of a new Al-Qaeda attack on Europe.

The alert is expected to advise American citizens to exercise extra caution when visiting major tourist destinations in Europe, report The Sunday Telegraph.

A travel alert is not as serious as a full travel warning, but could still damage the tourism industry in Europe. Last Tuesday the Eiffel Tower was evacuated following a bomb threat- the second made against the monument in as many weeks.

Reports in the German magazine Der Spiegel say that the planned Al-Qaeda attacks were to be planned and financed by Osama Bin Laden.

Sweden and Britain have both raised their threat levels in the past two weeks. Sweden is now at its highest-ever threat level amid fears the country could be targeted.

“The assessment is based on intelligence indicating a shift in activities among certain groups in Sweden, judged to be targeted at Sweden,” the Swedish Security Service said in a statement released on Friday.

European officials have said that any alert is not likely to name specific locations or countries, report USA Today.

“This travel alert is a cumulative result of information we have received over an extended period,” one senior US administration official told France 24. “We are constantly monitoring a range of threat streams and have monitored this and others for some time.”