A mobile phone with a nightmarish video of the final moments of Germanwings Flight 9525 was reportedly found in the wreckage, according to German newspaper Bild and France's Paris Match magazine, CNN reported, but investigators later claimed the existence of such a video was untrue.

The US cable news network, CNN, reported that Paris Match reported the mobile phone video included the sound of people crying "My God" in several languages.

"Metallic banging can also be heard more than three times, perhaps of the pilot trying to open the cockpit door with a heavy object," CNN quoted Paris Match as saying. "Towards the end, after a heavy shake, stronger than the others, the screaming intensifies. Then nothing."

The two publications said they had obtained the video from a source close to the investigation, but neither of them posted it on their websites.

Later, Lt Col Jean-Marc Menichini, a French Gendarmerie spokesman in charge of communications on rescue efforts around the Germanwings crash site, denied the existence of the video but admitted that searchers had indeed found mobile phones at the crash site.

Reports of one with such a video were "completely wrong" and "unwarranted", CNN reported him saying. He went on to say that mobile phones found at the site "hadn't been exploited yet".

The mobile phones found would probably be sent to the Criminal Research Institute in Rosny sous Bois, near Paris for analysis by specialised technician, the network reported Menichini saying but none of those found so far have been sent to the institute.

When CNN asked him whether rescue staff could have leaked a memory card to the media, Menichini responded with a firm "no".

Reports came as Lufthansa announced that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, blamed for crashing the plane deliberately, had admitted to his Lufthansa flight training school in 2009 that he had a "previous episode of severe depression".

The authorities have said Lubitz crashed Flight 9525 into the French Alps on March 24, killing all 150 people aboard.

CNN also said that his girlfriend knew he had psychological issues but "did not know the extent of the problems", according to a European government official briefed on the investigation into the crash.

The girlfriend told investigators the couple were working through the issues together and "were optimistic" they could solve the problems; she was just as surprised as everyone else by what he did to the plane, the source had said..