Greek coastguards Sunday rounded up 101 illegal immigrants in a coordinated operation in the eastern Aegean, officials said.

The migrants, mainly from Afghanistan and Iraq, were dropped on the tourist island of Samos, the island of Farmakonisis and two rocky outcrops by a flotilla of small boats from Turkey, coastguard officials said.

The officers also detained a 30-year-old Turk suspected of smuggling 10 of the immigrants into Greece, state television reported.

People smugglers regularly use the Aegean sea route to transport their human cargoes to Europe.

There are around 1 million foreigners from outside the European Union living in Greece, about 30 per cent of them illegally.