Google's boss Sundar Pichai has confirmed plans to create a censored search app for China that he claims would "serve well over 99pc of queries."

Codenamed "Project Dragonfly", the app would block sites banned by the country's ruling communist party, including Wikipedia and BBC News, according to leaked Google documents seen by The Intercept in August. It would also block terms like “human rights” and “democracy”.

Mr Pichai explained the controversial project, deemed "chilling" by human rights groups, was started so that Google could see how its search technology would work in the Asian country of 772m internet users.

"If Google would operate in China, what would it look like? What queries would we be able to serve?,” Mr Pichai told a crowd at Wired's 25th anniversary summit in San Francisco.

“It turns out we'd be able to serve well over 99pc of queries and there are many, many areas where we would provide information better than what's available."

Mr Pichai said he hoped his search engine could give more reliable results compared to its Chinese rival Baidu, which in 2016 promoted an experimental medical treatment which resulted in the death of a student with a rare form of cancer.

This led to a government investigation into Baidu, prompting regulators to place new restrictions on what the Chinese company could advertise.