Development of candidate reference method for accurate determination of four polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in olive oil via gas chromatography/high-resolution mass spectrometry using 13C-labeled internal standards

•ID-GC/HRMS method was developed for the accurate determination of PAHs in olive oil.•Extraction and clean-up steps were optimized to sufficiently remove co-extracted matrices.•ID-GC/HRMS method was validated to obtain high accuracy and precision.•The GC RT difference between native and deuterated PAHs causes bias in isotope ratio measurement.•13C-labeled PAHs were used to overcome matrix effects in GC/HRMS analysis.