ROME (Reuters) - Italian customs has seized more than 8,000 Kalashnikovs and other weapons on a ship headed to the United States, officials said Tuesday.

The arms, worth about six million euros, were discovered aboard a ship arriving from Romania that pulled into the southern Italian port of Gioia Tauro on its way to the United States, Italy's customs said in a statement.

According to travel documents, the arms are the property of a large U.S. company headquartered in the U.S. state of Georgia.

"We know that the destination was North America, but we don't effectively know if that's where the arms were going," a customs official told RAI state television.

The arms were found inside three different containers during a routine customs check earlier this week. They were confiscated due to discrepancies in the customs forms but the news was only made public Tuesday.

The customs office said the weapons had been described as "common guns" instead of assault rifles and longer-range combat arms in the travel documentation.

Romania's National Agency for Export Control (ANCEX) said in a statement: "There have been transfers of weapons of small caliber and of light weapons from Romania to the United States.

"Their export was done according to Romanian law, on the basis of individual export authorizations and on confirmation from the American authorities prior to the transfer," the ANCEX statement said.