The father of a five-year-old girl who was sitting in the back of the family car when it was stolen from a driveway in Wyndham Vale "hugged her straight away" when the pair were reunited.

The girl was sitting on the back seat of the black BMW when it was taken from a house on Kinglake Drive about 6:30am.

The car was spotted about 40 kilometres away in Norlane, Geelong, just after 7:00am and was pursued by police.

It crashed and a man then ran from the car. The girl was found safe and well.

The girl's father, Manik Sharma, was still coming to terms with the incident hours after it happened.

"I was shocked. I'm still in shock, but I'm relieved that I got my daughter back," he said.

"It's very hard for someone to go through a traumatising situation like that … [when their child] has been taken away."

Kylie Henwood lives on corner of Melbourne Road and Swallow Crescent where the car crashed.

"It just got closer, the sirens, and I looked out the window and saw the car and the police and it was quite scary," she said.

"I saw the little girl and she was so shaken, so scared.

"They got the child from the car and about half an hour later the dad arrived. He hugged her straight away and was quite sad."

Theft appears to be 'opportunist', police say

A man was seen getting into the car and driving off when the car was taken from Wyndham Vale, while a second male left the scene in a white Toyota Supra, police said.

Fifty police officers, police dogs and a helicopter had been searching the Norlane area for the men involved.

Superintendent Craig Gillard said the incident was "traumatic".

"I shudder to think about what they're [the child and parents] both going through," he said.

"I can only surmise that it's an opportunist theft. This is a very serious offence which could've had potentially a very serious outcome.

"We've got one of the most serious child-stealing offences you could think of. And a seriously traumatised child and parent."

Police initially said the child was a boy, but clarified their earlier reports after the incident.