European shares closed slightly lower on Monday, with trade range-bound due to concerns over the upcoming U.S. Federal Reserve policy meeting and Scottish independence vote.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 closed provisionally 0.1 percent lower at 1,382.
Investors remained cautious ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy announcement on Wednesday. Wall Street slipped at the open on Monday.
"U.S. data is now consistently humming...this is causing mass speculation that a language change to the (Fed's) statement is imminent," Evan Lucas, a market strategist at IG Markets, said in a research note.
European markets
Worries regarding the upcoming independence vote in Scotland also curbed sentiment in Europe. Polls show that the referendum is too close to call, with both sides campaigning hard over the weekend.
The vote—which will be held on Thursday—has led investors to sell shares of Scottish companies and place bearish bets on the British pound.
The U.K.'s benchmark FTSE 100 performed in line with the FTSEurofirst 300 on Monday, closing down around 0.1 percent.
Read MoreMarkets await Scottish vote—'very much concerned'
Across Europe, energy stocks were the main decliners on the back of falling oil prices.
Brewers gained however on deal talk in the sector. Shares in SABMiller closed nearly 10 percent higher following a report in the Wall Street Journal which said Anheuser-Busch InBev was considering a takeover bid.
The Wall Street Journal said AB InBev was not in active discussions with SABMiller, as it was waiting to line up financing. However, sources told CNBC that AB InBev was not in talks with banks to fund a bid.
This came after Heineken rejected a takeover bid from SABMiller on Sunday.
The pan-European food and beverages index closed around 1.2 percent higher on Monday and was the top performing sector, with other brewers boosted by the deal talk. Carlsberg, for instance, closed up around 2.1 percent.
In other stocks news, retailer H&M closed around 2.4 percent higher after its third-quarter sales data showed a 19 percent rise for last month.
At the bottom of European indexes, Denmark's TDC closed more than 10 percent down after reports that it has acquired a Norwegian cable company for $2.2 billion.
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