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The Italian Navy has found about 30 bodies in a fishing boat with hundreds of migrants between Sicily and the North African coast, the BBC reported, citing Italy's media. 

The migrants appeared to have been asphyxiated, Ansa news agency reports.

The grim discovery was made when rescuers boarded the vessel to evacuate a number of people said to be in distress, two of them pregnant women.

The fishing boat with about 600 migrants is now being towed to the town of Pozzallo, southern Sicily.

The Italian authorities say more than 60,000 migrants have already landed in southern Italy this year, and that the record of 63,000 set in 2011 is likely to be broken.

Italy - who bears the brunt of migrants making the perilous crossing in the Mediterranean - has repeatedly appealed for help from the EU to tackle the problem.

Earlier this month, at least 39 people drowned off Libya after an overloaded, inflatable boat capsized while trying to cross to the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Last October, 360 people died when a boat sank off Lampedusa.