At least 18 migrants were dead while crossing the Mediterranean sea from North Africa to southern Italy, the RAI state television reported Saturday.
The bodies were found by a merchant ship aboard a boat carrying some 600 people, which was intercepted off Lampedusa island, Italy's southernmost point.
Earlier Saturday, an Italian navy ship carrying 2,186 migrants arrived in the southern port of Salerno, while survivors said 60 people were missing.
The survivors said that their boat carried more than 120 people, but only 62 were pulled to safety when their boat was rescued along with others by the Italian government's search-and-rescue patrol mission.
Local newspaper Corriere del Mezzogiorno said the migrants were crossing from Libya to Italy and that they mainly originated from African and Middle East countries.
Italian authorities have opened an investigation.
The often deadly inflow of migrants into Italy, seen as one of the main gates to get into Europe, has been on the rise in recent months. The Italian government's navy patrol mission Mare Nostrum, or Our Sea, was going on to cope with the increasing arrivals in summer months.
The operation costs the Italian government around 300,000 euros (405,767 U.S. dollars) every day, and Italy has repeatedly called on the European Union to collaborate to tackle the emergency.
On Friday, three boats carrying around 700 migrants were intercepted and rescued by another navy ship off Lampedusa island, hours after two other Italian military vessels carrying over 2,000 migrants arrived at the southern ports of Reggio Calabria and Trapani.