A TOP-secret US security agency called the Q Group is in "complete freak-out mode", and has been hunting for whistleblower Edward Snowden since he disappeared from his Hawaii home in May.

Former CIA employee and IT contractor Mr Snowden threw the US National Security Agency into turmoil last week when he leaked details of a program called PRISM that spied on the internet use of non US citizens, including their emails, Skype calls and social media.

The elite security and counterintelligence directorate, known as "the Q Group", was already tracking Mr Snowden before The Guardian and the Washington Post published the leaks, the Daily Beast reports.

And the group, which acts as the NSA's internal police force, is still chasing him.

"There is complete freak-out mode at the agency right now," a former intelligence officer told The Daily Beast.

"There has never been anything like this in terms of the speed of referral of a crime report to the Justice Department. Normally this kind of thing takes weeks and weeks."

Mr Snowden leaked a 41-page Powerpoint slide show about the program, which was published on Thursday.

He left his girlfriend in Hawaii and fled to Hong Kong before the leaks were published, and his whereabouts are now unknown.

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Originally published as Inside the agency hunting whistleblower