The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) identified the suspect as Alek Minassian, 25, without identifying its source for that information.
Citing government officials, it said Minassian was not associated with any organised militant group.
Officials declined to answer questions about what motivated the driver to steer his vehicle towards people along about 1.6km of footpath just before 1.30pm on Monday in the northern section of Canada’s biggest city.
They said the driver was in custody and stopped short of calling it a deliberate act.
But at least one witness described the driver as appearing to deliberately target victims, according to media reports.
“This is going to be a long investigation,” Toronto Deputy Chief Peter Yuen told reporters after disclosing the death toll.
“The investigation is at a stage where no further information can be confirmed at this point,” Canada’s public safety minister, Ralph Goodale, told a news conference.
“The police are conducting obviously their thorough investigation to determine what happened and why it happened, the motivations involved,” Goodale said.
A Reuters witness saw at least two tarp-covered bodies at the site of the incident.
Five people remained in critical condition at Sunnybrook Health Services Centre on Monday afternoon, the hospital said.
The CBC aired a video it said was shot by a bystander that showed police arresting a suspect at the scene as he shouted: “Kill me” and pointed an unidentified object at an officer. The video later showed what appeared to be the same man lying on the ground, being handcuffed.
Ryder System Inc spokeswoman Claudia Panfil confirmed that one of the company’s rental vehicles had been involved and said the company was cooperating with authorities.
There has been a string of deadly vehicle attacks in the US and Europe. The Islamic State militant group encourages its supporters to use vehicles for attacks.
In September, a Somali refugee was charged with attempted murder over allegations he ran down four pedestrians with a car and stabbed a police officer outside a sports stadium in Edmonton, Alberta.
A man who gave his name as Ali told CNN he saw the van and that the driver appeared to have been targeting people.
“This person was intentionally doing this, he was killing everybody,” the man said. “He kept going, he kept going. People were getting hit, one after another.”
He said a number of the victims were older people and that he saw at one point a stroller fly into the air.
-Reuters
