Hollywood heartthrob Brad Pitt has been rushed to hospital suffering from what appears to be a bad case of flu, a representative of the actor has told.

The 41-year-old star of such films as Mr and Mrs Smith and The Fight Club checked himself into a hospital in Los Angeles on Monday night after being taken ill.

"Brad Pitt is in hospital. It looks like he's got a bad case of flu," a source in the office of his publicist, Cindy Guagenti, said yesterday.

No further details of Pitt's condition or whereabouts were immediately available.

Pitt, who is in the process of getting divorced from Friends star Jennifer Aniston, has just returned from Ethiopia where he accompanied his reported new love, Angelina Jolie, last week.

Jolie, Pitt's co-star in Mr and Mrs Smith, was in the African country to pick up her newly adopted daughter amid a media frenzy to confirm whether she and Pitt, who have appeared inseparable, are actually a couple.

Jolie, accompanied by her adopted Cambodian son Maddox, collected Zahara Marley, at an Addis Ababa orphanage last week before the group flew back to Los Angeles in a private jet.

Rumours began flying about Pitt and Jolie's reputed romance when they were shooting spy thriller Mr and Mrs Smith last year and Anniston and Pitt announced their separation after four and a half years of marriage in January.