Italy's ambassador to Pakistan has confirmed the deaths of two missing European mountain climbers on Nanga Parbat, the world's ninth-tallest mountain.

Ambassador Stefano Pontecorvo tweeted on Saturday that the search for Italian Daniele Nardi and Briton Tom Ballard ended after a team confirmed that silhouettes spotted at a height of about 5 900 metres were those of the two climbers.

Pakistani army helicopters with four rescuers had searched the mountain for days.

Nardi, 42, from near Rome, had attempted to scale Nanga Parbat in winter several times. Ballard, 30, was the son of British climber Alison Hargreaves, the first woman to scale Mount Everest alone. She died at age 33 descending the summit of K2.