POLICE have issued a warning about the perils posed by internet chatrooms following an investigation involving a 31-year-old man from Basingstoke.

The man was arrested in Merseyside after travelling there with a 14-year-old girl he met over the internet.

He was detained at Kirkby police station on Saturday on suspicion of child abduction.

The girl, from Winchester, is believed to have gone to Kirkby where she thought she was going to meet an 18-year-old she had supposedly been in contact with over the internet for several months.

She was reported missing by her parents on Saturday morning and Hampshire police officers travelled to the area to search for her.

However, after phone calls from her mother and the police, the girl went to Kirkby police station. The 31-year-old man accompanied the girl to the station and was subsequently arrested.

Investigations to trace the 18-year-old are ongoing in Kirkby, and in the Wallasey and Birkenhead areas of the Wirral, but police believe the girl may have been given false details over the internet.

The girl was not harmed in any way and has returned home with her parents who travelled to Merseyside on Saturday night to pick her up.

The incident has prompted the police to issue a warning about the perils of internet chatrooms.

Detective Inspector Bob Maker said: "We are extremely concerned that a vulnerable person, a teenage girl, ended up in a strange area of the country.

"So many children and teenagers now have access to the internet and chatrooms, and we think it's important to remind teenagers of the dangers of meeting people via this method.

"While the majority of conversations taking place are between children of the same age and are perfectly innocent, there are, unfortunately, a small number of inappropriate individuals who use these sites to prey on youngsters."

The Basingstoke man, who returned to Hampshire, has been bailed pending further enquiries.

He is due to report back to the police on March 10.