A roadside bomb went off on Tuesday on a main road in North Sinai, injuring two, state news agency MENA reported.

Unknown assailants remotely detonated a bomb they planted near a major road in the provincial capital of Al-Arish when an armoured vehicle passed by.

A policeman and a civilian were injured in the attack and transferred to a nearby hospital.

Security forces have been scanning the area searching for the perpetrators.

Egypt has been working to quell an Islamist insurgency that has increased since the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

The militancy, based in parts of North Sinai, has killed hundreds of security forces. Authorities have also reported that hundreds of militants have been killed in army campaigns in the governorate.

The country's most active militant group, Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, who pledged allegiance to the ISIS group in November 2014, has claimed responsibility for the most lethal attacks in the country, including in Cairo.

The group claimed credit for the downing of a Russian passenger jet over Sinai in October which killed all 224 on board. However, the Egyptian government has not yet confirmed what the cause of the incident was.