A police car has exploded during a failed assassination attempt on a police colonel in eastern Libya.

The attack was the latest in a series of assassination attempts in Benghazi, the cradle of last year's uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi, and the city where US ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed in a September 11 attack on the US consulate.

A bomb was placed under Colonel Mohammed Ben Haleem's car, which was parked outside his house. The explosion caused no injuries or deaths.