A British backpacker who went missing in three months ago while travelling in Europe has been located in a Serbian detention centre.

Dominic Madar, 27, made a brief phone call to his mother on Thursday, letting her know he was safe and well. It was the first time the family had heard from him since he disappeared.

The Exeter University graduate left his home in Tonbridge, Kent, to travel around Europe on Jan 14. He was last seen on Feb 1, when he went to the British Embassy in Bratislava, Slovakia, to report that he had been robbed.

Later that day, he contacted someone in Budapest to ask for a place to stay and there were two sightings of him in the Hungarian capital a week later but nothing since.

Kent Police liaised with a number of foreign embassies as they tried to locate him.

His sister Rowena, 25, described the family’s utter relief that he was alive and well, saying they were “incredibly happy and overwhelmed”.

“For the first time in months, Dom has managed to make contact with our family,” she wrote online.

“Although it was a very brief phone call, it seems that he is currently in a detention centre in Serbia, we are not sure how he got there, or why he is there but we’re just so relieved to know that he is safe! He is without a passport and money and until we know more about the situation, we are trying to not speculate about the details too much.