Electric scooters could soon be scattered around Brisbane for anyone to find with a mobile app for a short zoom through the streets.

The San Francisco-based start-up Lime last month launched 900 of its hire-on-demand electric scooters in New Zealand's two largest cities, Christchurch and Auckland, with plans to bring them to Brisbane and Melbourne soon.

US company Lime plans to introduce an electric scooter-share scheme to Brisbane and Melbourne.

Unlike Brisbane's CityCycle scheme, Lime scooters don't use docking stations. Instead, users find and unlock them on city streets using a map on a mobile app.

The scooters can travel at speeds of up to 27km/h, with a maximum range of 48 kilometres, and can be left anywhere within a certain area.