A picture which claims to show refugees carrying Isis flags and attacking police which went viral on social media is old, doesn't show the flag of the terrorist group and has nothing to do with refugees, it has been confirmed.

The image has been picked up by several right-wing outlets and has been shared tens of thousands of times since on social media, including Maltese users.

The site said it was a "new leaked picture" that "confirmed" its claims about Isis smuggling in agents among refugees.

The picture appears to have come from protests in Bonn, Germany in May 2012. The protest began as one by a former ascendant far-right political party in the country, and the Muslims in the picture were part of a counter-protest.

A video of what appears to be the same protest — at an anti-Islam rally in Bonn — can be seen on YouTube. The footage was uploaded on 2012, and appear to come from the same year — long before the flag took off as a widely-understood symbol of Isis.

The BBC also published a story debunking a photo that claimed to show a refugee in Europe was a member of the Islamic State. The before-and-after photo, which went viral after previous reports in the media of IS using the "migrant crisis" to smuggle militants into the European Union, turned out to be false.

The man shown in the image – shared tens of thousands of times – was not an IS militant but a former commander in the Free Syrian Army who had been profiled by the Associated Press only last month.

Similar sites have also made outrageous claims to instil fear as thousands of refugees fleeing Syria seek to make their way into Europe.