Police in Spain's Canary Islands Wednesday arrested a Moroccan suspected of "recruiting children for terrorist purposes", the interior ministry said.

Imad El Mouahhid, 25, also had "links with members of terrorist organisations currently serving sentences in Morocco," it said in a statement.

The suspect was detained in the town of San Bartolome de Tirajana on the island of Gran Canaria as part of Operation Quixote which is investigating people "involved in the recruitment and the proselytizing of jihad."

The suspect was "proselytizing and advocating terrorism through the recruitment of children for terrorist purposes and the development and distribution of different materials," the ministry said.