Mexican police have found 60 bodies, including those of children, in an abandoned crematorium in the Pacific resort of Acapulco, authorities say.

Authorities made the grim discovery of bodies covered in white sheets, some piled on top of each other.

"Among the 60 bodies that were found, there are cadavers of women, men and children that are perfectly embalmed ... [and] prepared for cremation," the Guerrero state prosecutor's office said in a statement.

"We are working on identifying how many children, women and men [were in the building]," Guerrero state chief prosecutor Miguel Angel Godinez said, without giving details about the cause of death.

Acapulco has been beset by drug gang violence but it was not immediately clear whether the bodies were murder victims or whether the corpses were left there when the crematorium closed.

"We can't say for now that there is an indication that organised crime participated in this but we can't rule it out," Mr Godinez told a local radio station.

He said forensic experts and investigators were seeking to determine how long the bodies have been in the building.

The prosecutor said authorities could carry out arrests but he declined to give more details.

Officials had initially reported that they had found 61 bodies.

Crematorium neighbours complain of 'foul smell'

The bodies were found late on Thursday (local time) after neighbours complained of a foul smell coming from the crematorium, a high-ranking state police official said on the condition of anonymity.

The officer said the bodies were in an advanced state of decay.

Local residents, who asked to remain anonymous, said they never noticed any unusual activity in the building and never saw any suspicious people in the area.

"We called [the emergency number] 066 because the smell became unbearable," said one neighbour.

"Everything is calm here. I didn't know the crematorium was closed but we hadn't seen people go in and out."

Anxious relatives seek answers

Worried relatives who had hired the funeral home's services to cremate family members went to Acapulco's morgue, asking authorities to check whether their loved ones were among the abandoned bodies.

Investigators have asked directors of local funeral homes to indicate whether they sent any corpses to the crematorium since 2013 in order to identify them.

David Jaimes, who had hired the crematorium nine months ago after his mother died, went to the city's Medical Forensic Service to ask them to analyse the ashes that were handed to him.

"I saw the furnace turned on and my mother lying there, but I never saw them put her inside," Jaimes told news agency AFP.

"The gentleman who was there told us 'get out if you want because this place is dangerous'. We left but we never saw the body go in, so we have this doubt today," he said.

Karina Garcia Jacinto, who paid the crematorium in December 2013 to cremate her father's body, went to the morgue with his death certificate.

"It's a concern that we have, as family members, to see if our relatives are there," she said.

Around 20 security forces were guarding the small, green-roofed crematorium early Friday.

From resort town to dangerous gangland

Acapulco was once a favourite haunt of Hollywood stars, but the city has lost its flair over the years as feuding drug gangs have turned it into one of Mexico's most violent places.

The port city is in Guerrero state, where authorities say 43 college students were abducted by corrupt police and handed over to the Guerreros Unidos drug gang, whose henchmen killed and incinerated the victims.

The aspiring teachers, all young men, vanished on September 26 in the city of Iguala, 210 kilometres north of Acapulco.

The Iguala case sparked protests and turned into the biggest challenge of president Enrique Pena Nieto's two-year-old administration.

AFP