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Mohamed ElBaradei, the outgoing head of the UN atomic watchdog, has called the nuclear threat from Iran "hyped" and said there was no evidence that Tehran will soon have nuclear weapons.

In an interview released on Tuesday, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) hit back at critics who accuse him of covering up Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"In many ways, I think the threat has been hyped," ElBaradei told the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based magazine critical of nuclear weapons.

"Yes, there's concern about Iran's future intentions and Iran needs to be more transparent with the IAEA and international community," he said.

"But the idea that we'll wake up tomorrow and Iran will have a nuclear weapon is an idea that isn't supported by the facts as we have seen them so far."