What appears to be a human foot and a leg bone have been found in a running shoe floating in a downtown Vancouver waterway, police say.

Shortly before 5 p.m. PT Tuesday, police were notified that the grisly find had been made in the water next to the Plaza of Nations marina in False Creek, Const. Jana McGuinness said in a release.

The area was cordoned off and the B.C. Coroner's Service was notified, McGuinness said.

She said there was no early indication of how the remains came to be there, and further forensic examination would be required.

The discovery is the 12th finding of purported human remains in a shoe in waters on the West Coast since August 2007. One of those discoveries proved to be the product of a hoax.

Some of the remains have been identified through DNA analysis, but the source of most of them is still not known.