As if getting up for work at 3am wasn't already bad enough, ABC News Breakfast presenter Virginia Trioli was on Monday morning confronted with a thief in her car.

The hard-hitting journalist was on her way to work at ABC's Melbourne studios when she found the man "rummaging" inside her car before bravely confronting him and placing him under citizen's arrest.

Trioli, 50, recounted the run-in on-air, telling co-host Michael Rowland she was shaken up by the incident but had been "too angry" to be scared.