WARSAW: A 27-year-old Pole on Friday knifed one person to death and injured seven others in a busy shopping centre in the southern city of Stalowa Wola that police did not immediately qualify as terrorism.

The attack occurred around 3 pm local time before shoppers apprehended the knifeman, identified only as Konrad K., and handed him over to police.

"The man acted irrationally, stabbing people in the back. One of the wounded women died. Seven other people are injured," police said in a statement.

Officers said the man had no criminal record and was sober. He is being tested for drugs.

Such attacks are extremely rare in Poland, an EU country of 38 million which has so far escaped the terrorism-related carnage experienced elsewhere in the bloc in recent years.

"The police are trying to establish the circumstances of the incident and above all, the reasons behind it," government spokesman Rafal Bochenek told the Polish PAP press agency.