The suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was not among a number of people arrested in a huge police raid on Wednesday, the city's prosecutor said.

At least two bodies were found in the apartment in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, after a shootout with police, but they have not yet been identified, prosecutor Francois Molins told a press conference.

He said intelligence had led investigators to believe Abaaoud, a leading Islamic State extremist, could have been in the apartment.

In a ferocious shootout, a woman detonated her suicide vest and a body was found riddled with bullets and was "not in a state that allows it to be identified", Molins said.

Therefore, he said: "I am not able to give you a precise number and identity of those killed. There are at least two dead and verifications will likely take longer than expected" due to the state of the apartment building.