Berlin, Nov 5 (IANS): A German man was detained for carrying nearly half a kilogram of explosives that he claimed he found on his travels through Europe, police said.

An employee at a petrol station in central Vienna alerted officers on Friday after the 54-year-old from Frankfurt told her about his possession, police said.

Numerous police as well as sniffer dogs were deployed to the scene, where the man was detained and his 400 grams of TNT seized, along with a military cartridge and a knife.

"He handed it over voluntarily," Xinhua news agency quoted a police spokesman as telling German news agency DPA on Saturday, adding that "this is not related to terrorism in any way".

The man told police that he left Germany in 2008 and has been roving Europe by bike ever since. He said he had found the block of explosives on a military training range in Slovakia.

Although the man was let free, he now faces charges of illegally possessing and importing war materials.