Nearly half of all fake identification documents seized by the authorities came from Italy, the police said.

Immigration officials confiscated 24 Italian travel and identification documents last year as the island experienced a surge in Italian migrants.

Sources from the immigration police explained how these would not necessarily belong to Italians but might also belong to migrants from other countries who attempted to enter Malta under false pretences.

Of the 24 confiscated documents, 15 were counterfeit (that is, copies) and four more were forged (that is, false originals). Five documents were legitimate but being used by an imposter.

The Italian documents made up 46 per cent of the 55 confiscated last year.

Of the 24 confiscated, 15 were counterfeit and four more were forged

Other false documents came from Bulgaria, Libya, Greece and Poland, among other countries.

Officials also seized 12 fake Maltese documents. Approximately 30 fake Maltese identification documents are seized locally every year.

The fake documents are not only used here but have reportedly been discovered at border-control desks across the world.

Fake Maltese passports were among a large quantity of forgeries the police seized in Bangkok in 2008. The documents were allegedly sold to a group of Thai and Burmese middlemen, who then sold them to gangs engaged in prostitution, terrorism and smuggling across Asia, the Bangkok police said.

Several of last year’s fake documents also came from Eastern Europe. Two men, one from Serbia and the other from Macedonia, were each given a suspended jail term last year after they admitted to making use of forged entry and exit rubber stamps on their passports.

A border-control officer who spoke to this newspaper said that this sort of practice was not uncommon and he knew what to look for when it came to fake rubber stamps.

A large number of those attempting to leave the country using fake documents, he added, were sub-Saharan migrants hoping to continue their clandestine journey to continental Europe.

One such migrant, a 31-year-old Malian, was jailed for two years earlier this year after he was caught trying to leave the country using a false Italian passport and a forged Italian residency permit. The man claimed to have paid an Italian forger €2,000 for the documents.