Sex offences committed by migrants in Germany have doubled to more than 3,000 in a single year, official figures have shown.

A new report issued by the German Government states that there were 3,404 sex crimes involving migrants last year compared with 1,683 in 2015.

The crimes range from less serious crimes up to rape.

The number of sex offences committed by migrants has risen in Germany (file image shows police officers arresting a Syrian man accused of smuggling migrants from Austria to Germany)

According to HeatStreet, data analysis by the Gatestone Institute think tank, the most frequently recorded nationalities were Syrian, Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani, Iranian, Algerian and Moroccan.

This comes after the number of migrant criminal suspects in Germany soared by more than 50 per cent in 2016, according to data from the Interior Ministry.

Police were hunting 174,000 suspects classed as immigrants in 2016, the data showed, 52.7 per cent more than in the previous year.

Crimes motivated by Islamism also increased by 13.7 per cent. That includes the truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market by a failed Tunisian asylum seeker.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere warned that crimes committed by refugees had 'increased disproportionately' last year.

The crimes range from less serious crimes up to rape. This comes after the number of migrant criminal suspects in Germany soared by more than 50 per cent in 2016 (file photo)

Migrants accounted for 8.6 percent of all crime suspects in Germany in 2016, up from 5.7 percent the previous year.

Mr De Maiziere blamed the high crime rate among migrants on their housing , saying that many were living in makeshift shelters or sharing crowded rooms in 2016.

The number of attacks on refugee homes has declined for the first time since data started being collected in 2014.

Some 995 were carried out in 2016, compared with 1,031 the previous year.

Under the German system immigrants are classed as people who are applying for asylum, refugees, illegal immigrants and those whose deportation has been temporarily suspended.