Three other fans - two Scots and another Englishman - have also fallen ill with the disease after visiting France.

The Department of Health said three of the men went to the same football match in Paris.

Two fans were thought to be in hospital in France, one of them in St Etienne, said a Scottish Office spokesman.

One Scotsman in his 50s was treated in hospital at Livingston, West Lothian, but was later allowed home.

The spokesman said other members of the group that travelled with the 32-year-old man were under observation but none had come down with the disease.

The French Health Ministry said the cases appeared so far to be unrelated. None of the afflicted fans had travelled in the same group or stayed in the same hotel at the same time.

The health ministry did not name the victims but said they all appeared to have passed at some point through Paris, but then attended matches in different cities.

A Foreign Office spokesman in London said: "They had been in Paris during the incubation period."

French and British health authorities are now investigating the cases to see if there was a common link.

The flu-like bacterial illness was first documented in July 1976 at an American Legion convention at a Philadelphia hotel. In all, 34 people died and 221 became sick there.

Legionnaires' is an airborne disease and can be transmitted through air conditioning units.