A van slammed into pedestrians near a campsite at a major music festival in the Netherlands yesterday, killing one person and seriously injuring three others, police said in a statement.

Dutch police arrested the driver of a delivery van that hit festival-goers, the statement said.

"The police found the white van that was involved in the incident and a suspect has been detained," it added.

No other details were provided. Police have cordoned off the section of the road with an investigation still under way.

With Pearl Jam, the Foo Fighters and Bruno Mars headlining, the 49th edition of the Pinkpop festival has drawn around 67,000 fans a day since it opened on Friday, according to the director, Jan Smeets, quoted by the Dutch news agency ANP.

Over the last two years, many Western countries including Canada, France, Britain and Germany have been facing similar attacks.

A rented van driven in a deadly rampage along a crowded sidewalk in Toronto is the latest example of a driver using a vehicle as a weapon in recent years.

A van plowed into pedestrians on a Toronto sidewalk in May, killing 10 people and injuring 15 others. The attack shook the usually peaceful streets of Toronto, a multicultural city with a population of 2.8 million.

The city recorded 61 murders last year.