Scotland's police on Saturday released a man after he was mistaken for a French fugitive wanted for killing his wife and four children eight years ago.

A journalist uses a camera to film a house in Nantes, western France on October 12, 2019, the former residence of fugitive Xavier Dupont De Ligonnes, who is suspected of having killed his wife and his four children 8 years ago. A man arrested on October 11, 2019, in Glasgow is not Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, according to a DNA test that turned out negative, it was reported on October 12, from a source close to the investigation. Photo: AFP

French judicial sources had initially believed that they had finally caught up with Xavier Dupont de Ligonnes, who was subject to an international arrest warrant for the 2011 killings which transfixed France.

But Scotland's police said they had informed their French counterparts that forensic tests proved the man detained at Glasgow airport on Friday was not Dupont de Ligonnes.

"Inquiries were undertaken to confirm the man's identity. Following the results of these tests it has been confirmed that the man arrested is not the man suspected of crimes in France," the police said in a statement.

"The man has since been released. The man and his family have no wish to speak to the media at this time and ask that their privacy be respected on this matter."

Sources close to the probe said the conclusion was reached after DNA tests.

The detained man was stopped in Glasgow after arriving on a flight from Paris following an anonymous tip-off, according to French sources close to the investigation.

Sources had said earlier that a fingerprint match had been made.

A police search was carried out on Friday at the arrested man's house in Limay in the western suburbs of Paris. 

Neighbors told AFP the house belonged to Guy Joao, a man of Portuguese origin with French and British nationality and who is married to a Scottish woman. 

It remained unclear what caused the confusion. One neighbor said Guy Joao does not "look anything like" Dupont de Ligonnes.

Dupont de Ligonnes, 58, is suspected of shooting his family dead and burying them in Nantes, western France.

Their bodies were found three weeks after the killings, during which time Dupont de Ligonnes reportedly told his teenage children's school he had been transferred to a job in Australia.