A car bomb ripped through a Pakistani bus station on Thursday, killing 12 people and wounding another 32 on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, a hospital doctor said.

The attack happened on the road towards the garrison city of Kohat. Peshawar runs into the lawless tribal belt, a stronghold of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants blamed for more than four years of bomb attacks in Pakistan.

"It was a car bomb blast. Twelve people have been killed and 32 injured, we are investigating whether a suicide bomber was involved or not," senior police official Kalam Khan told AFP.

Private TV channel Dunya broadcast footage of the site, where the wreckage of a car lay alongside other badly damaged vehicles, and ambulances and rescue workers raced to ferry the wounded to hospital.

Doctor Rahim Jan told AFP that at least 10 dead bodies had been brought into Peshawar's main Lady Reading hospital.

"We have imposed an emergency in the hospital," he told AFP.

Last Friday, a suicide bomber killed 31 people in a mainly Shiite Muslim area of the northwestern town of Parachinar in the tribal district of Kurram.

la-sjd/jm/emb