Investigators say a former student who killed nine students and a teacher in Austria a week ago and then took his own life had become fascinated with school shootings in recent years.

Austria plans to tighten its gun control rules after a 21-year-old killed 10 people then killed himself in the country's worst school shooting by far, the conservative-led government said on Wednesday.

The Austrian government has outlined plans to tighten gun laws in response to the deadly school shooting in the country's second-largest city of Graz. Chancellor Christian Stocker said on Wednesday the minimum age for the purchase certain types of firearms will be raised from 21 to 25 years,