No other deaths or injuries were reported after the unidentified man fired a number of shots. The campus was closed for the day but the university said on its website that the incident was now over.

"We feel there was not a second gunman," said Scott Perry, a spokesman for the university's police department.

University of Texas law professor Randall Wilhite, speaking on CNN, said the gunman was wearing a dark suit, tie and ski mask.

"He fired like three shots into the ground in front of my car," Wilhite said. "It appeared to me he was not trying to shoot anyone. He was running down the street and fired random shots."

The campus in Austin was the site of one of the most notorious killings in US history when, in 1966, student Charles Whitman barricaded himself on the observation deck of the university's clock tower and began shooting people with a rifle.

The spree killed 14 people and wounded 31, lasting 93 minutes until Whitman was shot dead by police. Whitman, a former Marine, had killed his wife and mother the night before.

There have been a number of deadly shootings on US campuses. In 2008, a former student at Northern Illinois University killed five people before killing himself and, in 2007, a student shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Polytechnic Institute before committing suicide.