A Germanwings passenger plane at the Cologne-Bonn international airport has been evacuated after police received a bomb threat against the flight, the airline says.

The Airbus A320 had left the gate and was taxiing toward the runway when federal police ordered the pilots to abort the take-off.

• ‘Dear pilots of the plane taking me home’

The 126 passenger and six crew were safely evacuated from the plane at a designated position at the airport used for such incidents.

Bomb-sniffing dogs did not detected any explosives. Officers were combing the aircraft and all checked and hand luggage was being examined, a police spokeswoman said.

The threat was emailed to the airport on Sunday evening, 20 minutes before the aircraft was scheduled to depart for Milan.

Flight 4U826 would leave later on Sunday using a different aircraft, Germanwings said.

The incident comes nearly three weeks after Germanwings flight 4U9525 slammed into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.

Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz intentionally crashed the jet, investigators said.