A Belgian prosecutor on Friday said investigators searched an apartment in Brussels they believe served as bomb factory for the Paris attacks.

A third-floor apartment on Rue Henri Berge in the Schaerbeek district of the Belgian capital was searched on December 10.

Federal prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt said the same residence was likely used as a hideout after the November 13 attacks by fugitive suspect Salah Abdeslam.

The Federal Prosecutor's Office on Friday said three handmade belts that could have been intended to transport explosives, as well as bomb-making equipment, traces of TATP explosive residue and a fingerprint from Abedeslam were found there.

Salah Abdeslam

Salah Abdeslam (born 15 September 1989) is a Belgian-born Moroccan-Frenchman, a known criminal, and a terrorism suspect. He rented a car used to drive the attackers to the Bataclan theatre preceding the November 2015 Paris attacks, in which 130 people were killed and 368 others were injured.

Soon after the details of the attacks became public, he was billed by some newspapers as Public Enemy No. 1, or as "the most wanted" for crimes by the authorities in Europe.

Having escaped and subsequently evaded the police authorities, he became "the target of one of the largest manhunts in European history."