A teacher who was supervising a class excursion has been identified as the victim killed when a car ploughed into a crowd on a German street.

The suspect, a 29-year-old German-Armenian man, is accused of deliberately driving his Renault through a busy shopping strip in west Berlin.

Berlin state senator Iris Spranger wrote on Twitter that the latest information given to police was that the driver was “a mentally impaired person”.

One woman was killed and at least 14 people – including children – were injured.

The woman was a teacher from the central German state of Hesse who was visiting the city with a school class.

Some Year 10 students were among the pedestrians injured, along with another teacher, the Hessian state government said.

In all, six people were in critical condition, three were suffering from injuries described as serious, and several other were slightly wounded.

The driver, who lives in Berlin, was detained shortly after the crash.

Police chief Barbara Slowik referred to him as a “suspect” who was now in hospital but did not speak about a possible motive.

Posters with inscriptions were found in the car in addition to written documents stating views on Turkey, Ms Spranger said.

She said the documents did not amount to a confession, denying what sources had previously told German media outlets.

The man ploughed into the pedestrians on the pavement, then returned to the road before hitting a car and crashing into a nearby a perfume shop, police said.

Afterwards a body could be seen lying near an an intersection.

Several hours after the incident, the Europacenter shopping centre was partially evacuated.

That was because authorities had found the perpetrator’s car parked on the other side of the street from the large shopping centre. Police said it was a precautionary measure in case there was something dangerous in the car.

The location of Wednesday morning’s incident was in the same area where a jihadist attack took place at a Berlin Christmas market in 2016.

Tunisian man Anis Amri, a failed asylum seeker, drove a stolen lorry through the festive gathering in the square in front of the landmark church near Kurfurstendamm.

Amri was shot dead in Italy several days after the attack.

Eleven people died in the immediate aftermath of the carnage while another man who was severely injured died in October 2021.

More than 70 people were injured.

The original driver of the truck was shot dead by the assailant in a hijacking hours before the market ramming.

-with AAP