Rome - Three gunmen tried to hijack a bus near the northern Italian city of Genoa on Tuesday and one was surrounded by police in a house after the failed bid in which a police officer was wounded, Ansa news agency said.

All the passengers were released unharmed before the hijackers set the bus ablaze, the report said.

One of the armed men was arrested, a second hijacker fled and the third was hiding in a nearby house that had been surrounded, Ansa reported.