Rescuers on Monday resumed the search for a couple who have been reported missing after being caught up in the extreme weather that battered southern Italy at the weekend, Italian news agency ANSA reports.

The married couple, a 67-year-old man and a 54-year-old woman, got out of their Ford Fiesta car on Sunday when mud and flood waters inundated the town of Scordia, near Catania, and they may have been swept away, an eyewitness said.

The eyewitness was a motorist who was rescued by fire-fighters after being trapped in his car by the water and mud.

Sicily, Calabria, Basilicata and Puglia remained on alert on Monday in relation to the extreme weather, which caused rivers to burst their banks in the provinces of Trapani and Catania on Sunday, with torrential rain and high winds continuing to clobber the south.

Catania Mayor Salvo Pogliese has closed the city's schools, parks and cemeteries on Monday.

Scientists say climate change caused by human activity is making extreme weather events more frequent and even more intense.

TGcom also reports that the amount of rain expected in Sicily today and in the coming days would normally be that accumulated over a six-month period.

Malta has also woken up to rain on Monday. The Met Office is forecasting showers and thunderstorms until Thursday.