A MAN kept two teenage girls shackled in a secret underground chamber in China for nearly a year and the pair were only rescued after smuggling out a note, state media said today.

The girls, aged 19 and 16, were found last Friday, naked except for shackles on their feet, in the secret lair built by the man under his home in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in central China, the Beijing News reported.

The 19-year-old, whose home was just 200 metres from where she was held, went missing in July last year. No details on the other girl were provided and neither victim was identified.

The man suspected of holding them captive was named as Zeng Xiangbao, 39, the report said.

He was detained by police a week before the girls were found on an unrelated rape charge, but the report made no mention of whether the captive girls had been raped.

Due to Zeng's detention, police said, the two girls would probably have starved to death if a nearby business owner had not found a piece of paper with a plea for help, a phone number and a map scrawled on it, according to the report.

The man who found it called the number, which belonged to the 19-year-old's father, identified only by his surname Zhou. Police were then contacted.

The girls had smuggled out such notes on many occasions, usually hidden in the rubbish of the instant noodles that they were fed by Zeng.

Police were investigating the case, said the report, which made no mention of any charges filed against Zeng.