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Surgeons were forced to stop operating on a 'deceased' patient after discovering he was not brain dead, the Daily Mail reports.

Doctors at a hospital in the Bremen area of Germany realised their patient was still technically alive after making an incision into his stomach.

The team were due to harvest the man's organs for donation.

But the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reports the operation was stopped as soon as the surgeons discovered their patient was not brain dead according to medical regulations.

An insider told the paper: 'It is quite possible that the man's brain was so damaged that he would not have been able to return to a normal life, but as long as he was not properly diagnosed as brain dead, nobody knows.'

The German Medical Association is set to review the incident to determine what happened, the Local reported.

Axel Rumia, director of the German Foundation for Organ Transplants, which reviews the accuracy of brain death diagnoses before organ donation, said the case it is of 'particular concern' that the diagnosis of brain death is 'performed with knowledge of medical science'.

The GMA is also expected to investigate how doctors handled the discovery.

Documents are said to state the operation was terminated due to the patient suffering cardiovascular failure.

But investigators are now tasked with finding out if the patient's heart stopped by chance, or as a result of doctors changing oxygen levels when they discovered he may not be brain dead.