Planes were grounded at Eindhoven Airport in the southeast of the country, which normally takes passengers to 30 international destinations.

"Due to a network disruption, there is no air traffic possible at Eindhoven Airport. It is still unclear when the situation will be resolved," according to the airport website.

The country's main airport, Schiphol near Amsterdam, which is a major European hub, appeared to be functioning normally.

But the outage also appeared to be hitting several other public services in the Netherlands.

The coastguard said in a statement it was "not reachable" due to the outage, either by telephone or radio. It urged people in an emergency situation to call the 112 emergency number.

The contact centre of the military police was also not reachable, authorities said. It was also not possible to make an appointment for a Covid vaccine.

Last month, airlines, banks, and media worldwide were thrown into chaos by one of the biggest IT crashes in recent years, caused by an update to an antivirus programme.