The government is "verifying" the alleged abduction of six-year-old Eitan Biran - the sole survivor of a cable car crash in northern Italy - by his maternal grandfather, according to foreign minister Luigi Di Maio.
"We are carrying out checks and verifying what happened, before intervening," Di Maio said.
Shmulik Peleg reportedly took Eitan out of the country on a private jet from Lugano, Switzerland, using the child's Israeli passport.
Eitan's paternal aunt Aya Biran-Nirko, who lives in Italy and was granted custody of the boy in June after he was released from hospital.
Eithan's parents, younger brother and two great grandparents were among 14 people killed when their cable car plunged to the ground in northern Italy last May.
Prosecutors in the northern city of Pavia on Monday opened an investigation of aggravated kidnapping by Peleg, and called for the boy's return to Italy under the Hague Convention on Children's Rights.
Before the cable-car crash near Stresa on 23 May, Eithan had been living in Italy with his parents and younger brother and has dual citizenship.
