A group of up to 10 armed men stormed the Radisson Blu hotel in an area west of the city centre near government and diplomatic buildings.
A member of the hotel's security detail said two private security guards had been hurt when the attack was launched at about 7am on Friday.
Police have surrounded the hotel and are blocking roads leading into the neighbourhood.
The affiliation of the gunmen is not known, but Malian army commander Modibo Nama Traore said they shouted "Allahu Akbar" or "God is great" in Arabic before firing on guards and taking hostages.
Later, a security source said some of the hostages - including those able to recite verses of the Koran - had been freed.
Rezidor Hotel group, which runs the Radisson Blu, said the attackers initially "locked in" 140 guests and 30 employees.
The US and French embassies have asked their citizens to stay indoors wherever they are in Bamako.
The Chinese state news agency Xinhua said several Chinese citizens were among the people trapped inside the building.
And a Turkish official said Turkish airlines had six staff members inside the hotel.
An Islamist insurgency in 2012 saw much of the north of the west African country occupied by fighters, some with links to al-Qaeda.
The militants were driven out by a French-led military operation, but there have been violent incidents since then.
An Islamist group claimed responsibility for an attack on a nightclub popular with western vistors in Bamako in March this year. A gunman killed five people including a French and a Belgian man.
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