Warning: Distressing content

Global outrage is mounting after Chinese scientists were revealed to be using live pigs as crash test dummies - either killing them in the process or leaving them badly maimed.

But it is not just pigs. Animal rights group PETA claims live dogs are also used in similar experiments.

In the video above: Dog taken by crocodile in Queensland

The ghastly practice was revealed by the scientists themselves in the International Journal Of Crashworthiness.

They said they used the pigs because they were similar in size to young children.

"A total of 15 whole-body sled tests were performed, for 15 immature pigs corresponding to children aged 6 years old," the journal article states.

The article then describes the pigs being smashed into a wall at speeds of up to 50km/h.

"The detected injuries were abrasion, contusion, laceration, bleeding and fracture.

"All animals sustained multi-injuries," the journal article revealed.

PETA recently contacted China's Research Institute for Traffic Medicine and Daping Hospital in a bid to get the scientists to stop using live animals in the tests.

In an online statement blowing the whistle on the experiments, the activists say the pigs were starved for 24 hours, deprived of water for six hours and strapped into a car seat with seat belts and ropes before they were slammed into the wall.

PETA also noted that according to the institute's own publications, equally brutal experiments had been carried out on dogs.

The aftermath of one of the experiments. Credit: Supplied / International Journal of Crashworthiness

Experimenters forced dogs onto an L-shaped rigid seat in a human sitting position using cloth restraints," PETA claimed.

"They then affixed a disc to their heads with a steel wire rope, sewed sensors into their heads, held their heads up by their ears, dropped a hammer to hit the disc (causing the dogs’ heads to violently thrust backwards and resulting in whiplash, limping, and difficulty in moving hind limbs), and killed and dissected them."

More on 7NEWS.com.au

PETA notes that there are many other ways of conducting such tests via sophisticated computer simulations and dummies.

"Pigs and dogs are fundamentally anatomically different from humans.

"Car companies figured out years ago that these kind of experiments are worthless and tell us nothing about a human experience in a car crash," the organisation said.