Berlin: China is open to an independent investigation to determine the origins of the coronavirus now sweeping the world, its ambassador to Berlin told a German magazine on Friday, amid US allegations that it came from a laboratory.

China has dismissed as groundless US and Australian questioning of how it had handled the coronavirus pandemic, saying it had been open and transparent, despite growing scepticism about the accuracy of its official death toll.

"We are open to an international investigation," Wu Ken told Der Spiegel magazine in an interview. "We support the exchange of research among scientists.

"... But we reject putting China in the dock without evidence, assuming its guilt and then trying to search for evidence through a so-called international investigation."