The holder of a Syrian passport found near the body of one of the gunmen who died in Friday night's attacks in Paris passed through Greece in October, a Greek minister said.

"The holder of the passport passed through the island of Leros on Oct. 3, 2015, where he was identified according to EU rules," Greece's deputy minister in charge of police, Nikos Toskas, said in a statement.

Toskas did not know if the Syrian passport had been checked by other countries through which the holder might have passed on his way to France.