The Russian president has been warned of a plot to assassinate him during a planned visit to Iran next week, according to Russia's Interfax news agency.

But Tehran has described as "totally baseless" the report, which said Russian security services had been told suicide bombers and kidnappers were training to kill or capture Vladimir Putin.

"Reports published by some media are totally baseless and are in line with the psychological war launched by enemies who want to harm Iran and Russia's relationship," Mohammad Ali Hosseini, foreign ministry spokesman, said on Sunday.

The Russian president is travelling to Tehran to attend a meeting a summit of the five states that surround the Caspian Sea, and Hosseini said this would go ahead as planned.

Putin is the first Kremlin leader to travel to Iran since Josef Stalin, the former Soviet leader, attended a wartime summit with Winston Churchill, former British prime minister, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, former US president, in 1943.