German authorities do not know the whereabouts of 130,000 asylum seekers, the government said in a document seen by AFP on Friday.

Of around 1.1 million asylum seekers registered in 2015, "about 13 percent did not turn up at the reception centres to which they had been directed," the government said in a written reply to a question from a lawmaker from the Left Party.

Some may have returned to their home countries, travelled on to another country, or gone underground, it said, adding that there may also have been repeated registrations of the same individual.