The search will continue this morning for a five-year-old boy feared taken by a crocodile in far north Queensland.

Searchers have found several crocodiles close to where a boy went missing on the Daintree River, north of Cairns, yesterday.

Rangers from the Environmental Protection Agency conducted spotlighting on the river overnight to locate crocodiles.

A local tourism operator who helped with the search says three crocs - a male known as 'Lumpy' and two females - were spotted near where the boy disappeared.

Police say he vanished after following his dog into the water from a boardwalk on his parents property on the river's northern bank.

His seven-year-old brother was with him and told police he saw a crocodile soon after his brother vanished.

His parents are local tourism operators and his father has been involved in the search overnight.

Authorities are hoping to search the area on foot where the boy disappeared before the tide rises later this morning.

The disappearance has shocked the small Daintree community.

If confirmed as a fatal crocodile attack, it would be the second in far north Queensland since October when a 62-year-old man was killed near Cooktown.