Police in the United States used the Google Street View service to track down a 9-year-old girl allegedly abducted by her own grandmother.

The girl was picked up by her grandmother on Saturday for a weekend visit, but the child's guardians contacted police after comments made to them by the grandmother that they would never see her again.

Todd Neale, a police officer in Athol, Massachusetts, obtained the coordinates of the girl's mobile phone from her telephone operator. He then contacted Thomas Lozier, a colleague in the fire service, to work out where exactly where the child was being held.

The two men found that the phone’s coordinates kept coming in within 300 feet of each other at an intersection in Virginia, although as they were based in Massachusetts they were unable to see it for themselves.

“Then I Googled it," Mr Lozier told the Worcester Telegram and Gazette.

At which point, they used Google Street View to virtually look around the intersection, and saw a large building nearby where the pair could be hiding. Again using Google, they worked out that the building was a hotel.

They informed Viriginia state police, who acted on the information and found girl and her grandmother at the hotel. The grandmother has since been arrested.

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