A scientist was killed and two people injured when a magnetic bomb attached to a car by a motorcyclist exploded at a university in Tehran on Wednesday, Iranian news agencies said.

The person killed was identified by several media as Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a scientist and lecturer at the university, who was in the car with two passengers.

"This morning a motorbiker attached a bomb to a Peugeot 405, which exploded," the deputy governor of Tehran province, Safar Ali Bratloo, was quoted as saying by the ILNA news agency.

Roshan was killed and the two injured passengers were taken to hospital, Bratloo said.

The Fars news agency also reported the explosion was caused by a magnetic bomb attached to the car by a motorbiker.