German police are investigating the deaths of three people who were found in a hotel impaled by crossbow bolts.

Hotel staff discovered the bodies in a room alongside two crossbows, the German news agency DPA reported.

The relationship between the three victims – a man in his fifties and two women aged 30 and 33 – was not immediately clear.

The hotel is on the banks of the Ilz river, on the edge of the Bavarian city of Passau near the Austrian border.

There was no evidence to suggest that another person was involved in the deaths, DPA reported.

Another hotel guest, who was staying in the hotel for a short break, told local newspaper Passauer Neue Presse that it had been a “completely quiet night”.

The hotel manager said the three dead, who were all German, had planned to stay for three nights but had not ordered breakfast.