MONTREAL - The international crime-fighting group Interpol has joined a global manhunt for porn actor and suspected sadistic killer Luka Magnotta, who might have fled Canada days after allegedly cannibalizing a friend.

Montreal police believe the 29-year-old Toronto native left the country last weekend for France under a false name.

Magnotta also goes by the names Eric Clinton Newman and Vladimir Romanov, police said.

He is white, 5-foot-10, 135 lbs. with blue eyes and black hair.

Police say they've issued an arrest warrant for Magnotta on charges of second-degree murder and indignity to a human body.

Magnotta apparently hitchhiked his way to Ontario one week ago, not long after a man in his 30s was killed, cut to pieces and partially eaten in Magnotta's one-room apartment in west-end Montreal.

The grisly slaying made headlines around the world after a severed foot was mailed to Conservative headquarters in Ottawa and a hand, destined for a Liberal office in the nation's capital, was intercepted at a Canada Post depot.

CTV reports a note attached to the package containing the severed foot warned the killer would strike again and that six body parts had been mailed out.

Montreal police Cmdr. Ian Lafreniere was asked about several experts who have told QMI Agency that the crime bears the hallmarks of a serial killer.

The spokesman said it's unlikely the perpetrator has killed others in the past but detectives aren't ruling it out.

"As a responsible police service, yes, we're checking this possibility, but now we've got no reason to confirm this," Lafreniere said.

If Magnotta is the killer, it would be difficult for him to kill again, Lafreniere said.

"I would have a hard time to believe that this gentleman could get away with a second (murder). His picture is everywhere around the world now."

A janitor in Montreal found a dismembered torso in a suitcase on Tuesday, triggering the police investigation and manhunt.

In a gruesome twist to the case, Lafreniere confirmed that a graphic and deeply disturbing video that emerged online, showing a murder and dismemberment, is that of the murder under investigation.

The video shows a man being stabbed to death with an ice pick and then being cut into pieces.

"Some investigators have been doing this for more than 30 years, they say they never saw something that disgusting," the commander said.

The victim might have been Magnotta's ex-lover who was reported missing just over a week ago in Montreal, sources say.

Lafreniere confirms the victim was reported missing and that he knew Magnotta, but wouldn't say if he was Asian or if the pair had been lovers.

He added that people from overseas have been calling Montreal police asking about missing men who fit the victim's description.

"He's got no family over here so that makes the investigation more complicated," Lafreniere said.

A woman who says she picked up Magnotta as a hitchhiker last week recalled that he was handsome, very polite but had a "strange expression."

The woman, who didn't give her name, told QMI Agency that she picked him up last Thursday in St-Lazare, Que., about 40 km west of Montreal.

She says she was driving along a highway with her son when she saw a man dressed in black who was carrying a black knapsack.

"My son and I let him in and he said he wanted to get to Ottawa or Toronto," she said Thursday.

"He had nice black hair, he had piercings, he was very, very well put together."

She said the man was quiet, speaking only when she and her son asked him where he was going.

"He said he came from Montreal and he was hitchhiking to Ottawa and Toronto, and that he had friends there and he did that often," the woman said. "I didn't feel at any time that I was in danger (though) I found that he had a very strange expression."

She said she let him off in Valleyfield, Que., near the Ontario border and was surprised when she read news articles Thursday identifying Magnotta as a possible killer.

"I asked my son, 'Do you remember him?' and he said, 'Yes, mom, he was the one we saw.'

"I thought I was picking up a student and was helping him out. We don't just pick up anyone."