The 48-year-old man, identified only as Mohsen V., was arrested in the western city of Frankfurt on Tuesday and is "strongly suspected" of breaking German laws covering foreign trade, according to a statement from the federal prosecutor's office.

Investigators searched the man's business premises in Frankfurt and the offices of an unidentified German company in the nearby city of Ludwigshafen, the statement added.

It gave no further details of the nature of the components in question.

Germany places strict restrictions on the goods that can be exported to Iran.