Police arrested five people on Wednesday, after a group of would-be immigrants landed on Sardinia in the early hours of the morning.
Carabinieri officers monitoring the area stopped 32 Algerians who arrived near the southwest port of Pino just before dawn on board five wooden boats.
The five men leading the boats were arrested by police, while the rest of the group were taken to immigrant holding and reception centres in Rome and Crotone, a town in southern Italy.
The operation took place less than 24 hours after police stopped another group of Algerians trying to land on Sardinia.
On Tuesday, coast guards and Carabinieri caught 15 people near Pino, not far from where their boat had run aground.
Another four people managed to escape.
"The number of arrivals are starting to create problems from a logistical point of view, in terms of sending people to reception centres," said Efisio Orru, the police chief in the Sardinian city of Cagliari.
Wednesday's operation has prompted concern that people smugglers trying to bring immigrants from Africa to Europe may be expanding their routes.
The tiny Sicilian island of Lampedusa, which is closer to Tunisia than to mainland Italy, has traditionally borne the brunt of migrant landings from Africa.
But a crackdown in coastal patrols and police surveillance in waters around the island is apparently leading smugglers to switch their focus.
"These landings can no longer be viewed as isolated incidents," Daniel Melis, commander of Cagliari's Carabinieri special ops, told reporters on Wednesday.
He pointed out that the northeast Algerian port of Annaba, where the latest group arrived from, was just 125 miles from southern Sardinia.
"With good weather and calm waters you can reach Sardinia in 10 to 15 hours," he said.
Melis said 196 people had landed on Sardinia since November 2003, when police first caught five Moroccans arriving by sea.
Over half of those stopped by police since then have been Algerians. There have also been two Romanians and one Palestinian, while the rest came from Morocco or Tunisia.
"The boats that have landed in the last two days have all been in excellent condition, which fuels our conviction that a genuine trafficking network is being created," Melis continued.
"Most of those we spoke to said they were aiming to reach France but there were also a great many hoping to work in Italy or join friends and relatives in various Italian cities".
Meanwhile, four boats carrying 113 migrants were intercepted off Lampedusa on Tuesday morning in what local authorities said could be the start of a fresh immigration crisis.
The migrants, who included four women, were taken to the island's immigrant holding centre.
The authorities expressed concern that unseasonably good weather would encourage an increase in migrant crossings over the next few weeks.
Most immigrants landing on Lampedusa are believed to set sail from Libya, a major staging post for those trying to reach Europe.
In 2006, over 97% of the migrants illegally travelling to Italy landed in Sicily and on Lampedusa, according to government statistics.
The numbers have increased dramatically in recent years, with 23,000 migrants landing on Lampedusa in 2005 compared to 13,000 in 2004.
