A DUTCH man has confessed to stabbing to death a young British woman holidaying in Indian Kashmir while under the influence of drugs, police say.

Richard De Wit, 43, told police he had murdered Sarah Groves, who had been staying on the New Beauty houseboat at Dal Lake in the Indian Kashmir city of Srinagar for two months.

"He has confessed that he committed the murder under the influence of some drug. We have sent his blood sample for testing to ascertain the facts," deputy inspector general of police Afadul Mujtaba said on Sunday.

De Wit was arrested on Saturday as he tried to flee in a taxi near Qazigund, 75 kilometres south of Srinagar, soon after the 24-year-old was found dead in a pool of blood in her houseboat cabin.

Police, who have yet to establish a motive for the crime, said they had spoken to De Wit's wife in Holland who told them that her husband has had a history of psychiatric problems.

De Wit, who had been staying in an adjacent room in the same houseboat as the victim after arriving on Thursday, broke the latch on her cabin door and tried to escape in a small boat after killing her, police said.

Mujtaba said a sexual motive for the crime had not been established.

The gruesome incident comes after a 39-year-old Swiss cyclist was allegedly gang-raped and robbed by six men in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh last month.

Also last month, a British woman dental hygienist suffered leg injuries when she jumped from a hotel balcony in the northern tourist city of Agra, fearing a sexual assault by hotel employees.

The safety of women in India has been in the spotlight since the fatal gang-rape in December of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on a bus in New Delhi, which sparked nationwide outrage.

Originally published as Dutch man confesses to killing UK woman