A person has been arrested in connection with the disappearance of a British toddler in Germany in 1981.

Katrice Lee, from Hartlepool, disappeared from a supermarket near a British military base in the city of Paderborn on her second birthday.

She was out shopping with her mother, Sharon, at the Naafi (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes) store, near to where her father Richard, a soldier, was stationed.

Military police reportedly began searching a terraced house in the Moredon area of Swindon in Wiltshire on Monday.

An army spokesman refused to give the gender or age of the arrested person, nor what they had been arrested on suspicion of.

He said: “We can confirm that an arrest was made on 23 September by the Royal Military Police in connection with the disappearance of Katrice Lee in 1981.

“As this is an ongoing investigation we cannot comment further at this stage.”

It is understood that Katrice’s family have been informed of the arrest.

Last year a section of a riverbank in Germany was excavated as part of renewed investigations into Katrice’s disappearance, but nothing was found.

Katrice went missing while shopping for treats for a birthday party from the British military supermarket.

Her mother realised in the checkout line that she had forgotten crisps and asked Katrice’s sister to watch her. When she returned, in what she has estimated was less than a minute, Katrice was gone.

Her sister said Katrice had run after their mother and she believed the pair were together.