A Belgian jihadist named as the ringleader of the Paris massacres was not among those arrested during a police operation in the north of the city, officials said.

Eight people were arrested after police swat teams carried out a seven-hour siege at a flat in Saint-Denis, but they did not include Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind, and Salah Abdeslam, one of the suspected gunmen who is now the focus of an international manhunt.

Two people died during the police operation, one of whom was a woman who blew herself up.

But Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said officials have not yet been able to identify the bodies due to their condition.

Mr Molins said the operation had neutralised a "new terrorist threat", and that "everything led us to believe that, considering their armaments, the structured organisation and their determination, they were ready to act".

Police fired around 5,000 rounds of ammunition during an hour-long exchange of gunfire as the terrorist cell barricaded themselves in a hideout in the north of the city, less than a mile from the Stade de France football stadium where one of last week's attacks took place.

Heavily armed police squads initially were thwarted by an armoured door and had to use assault guns, sniper rifles, grenades and explosives during an "extremely difficult" and "complex" operation in the early hours of this morning.

Two bodies were found in the rubble of the building after an explosion, thought to have been caused when a woman detonated a suicide vest.

Mr Molins said: "At least one terrorist killed herself with an explosive. The floor of the flat collapsed and the state of the bodies and what is left of them will demand some more investigation."

He added: "I'm not in a position to give a precise and definitive number for the people who died, nor their identities, but there are at least two dead people

Two men were found inside the flat, one of whom was injured and arrested. The eight arrested included one woman and a man whose flat was used as a hideout by the terror cell and are being interrogated.

Mr Molins said: "The identities of the people who were arrested in this building are not absolutely certain but Abaaoud and Salah Abdeslam are not part of the people who have been arrested."

Earlier, the prosecutor said the raid was launched after information from tapped telephone conversations, surveillance and witness accounts suggested Abaaoud might be in a safe house in the Saint-Denis suburb.

Several police officers were injured and a police dog was killed during the operation.