Police are demanding new powers to crack down on the use of remote-controlled drones amid fears that they are being abused by Peeping Toms and could become a major public hazard.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that at least a dozen incidents involving unmanned aircraft have been reported since Christmas when thousands of people received the gadgets – which are fitted with cameras – as presents. Some complainants said they were flown outside bedroom windows.

Tourists are also using drones to take ‘selfie’ photographs in front of landmarks such as Parliament and the London Eye despite it being illegal to fly them near buildings and people.

Police are demanding new powers to crack down on the use of remote-controlled drones amid fears they are being abused by Peeping Toms. Above, a DJI Phantom drone

The warnings from senior officers come on the eve of a major Parliamentary report into the ‘staggering’ increase in civil drone use, which may call for new European rules on safety, privacy and insurance.

Last week police in Paris arrested three Al Jazeera journalists for flying a drone.

HOW PILOTS FLY INTO COMMONS AND PALACE... Videos posted on YouTube show spectacular footage of London’s major landmarks taken illegally from drones. One drone scales the 315ft of Big Ben to show the clock face in minute detail. The ‘teatime’ tour begins in Parliament Square, where it zooms in on the Houses of Parliament’s peaks and the clock tower, before heading to the South Bank. Then it flies inside the Barbican and scales The Gherkin’s glass curves. Shots from Tower Bridge and above the Tower of London show parts of the site no tourist could ever see. The drone also soars up to the London Eye’s top capsule. The tourists inside have paid more than £20 each to see the same view that the illegal footage reveals. Despite top security precautions, Buckingham Palace was filmed from The Mall by another machine. A YouTube user identified as ‘DronePrankster’ captured images of the Royal residence from above tourists’ heads with a £255 Parrot AR 2.0 device. Advertisement

Landmarks including the Eiffel Tower have been buzzed by unidentified aircraft, sparking fears that they could be used by terrorists for reconnaissance or attacks.

Chief Inspector Nick Aldworth, Scotland Yard’s expert on drones, said police forces are bracing themselves for a rise in the ‘malicious, negligent or reckless’ use of the technology, and are drawing up national guidelines on how the problem should be tackled.

They are calling for the power to seize unmanned aircraft being used in crowded places, and to inspect the pictures stored in onboard cameras.

Such legislation does not exist at the moment. Police also want aviation law to be a ‘little less complicated’ so they no longer have to prove that an unmanned aircraft was flying within a certain distance of a building.

Under the strict terms of the Air Navigation Order, they cannot be used within 164ft (50 metres) of a person, vehicle or building, or above crowds of people, or anywhere above towns and cities.

Drones have become a hugely popular way to take dramatic photos and video of homes, landscapes and cities from the air as they have become cheaper, lighter and now come with high-definition cameras.

They cost as little as £50 for hand-held ‘toy’ versions, while models that can be operated using a smartphone and capture high-definition video cost less than £500.

Dramatic incidents involving drones have included one being used to fly at terrified shoppers at the Elephant and Castle shopping centre in South-East London, and another hovering above Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium during a Premier League match.

One online video shows a drone slowly ascending the side of The Shard in London, while others soar over the rooftops of the Houses of Parliament and St Paul’s Cathedral.

A drone was flown towards a small plane landing at Southend airport while another came close to an RAF Merlin helicopter above a beach in Cornwall.

In London, a 29-year-old man flying a drone around the Winter Wonderland fairground in Hyde Park was issued with a formal reprimand and sent a letter telling him he had broken aviation law.

Two people complained drones were looking into their properties.

An image of Buckingham Palace taken using a drone and uploaded to Youtube in 2013 by its pilot

Astonishingly clear photographs were taken by another drone flown by Team BlackSheep and uploaded to the internet

Another image shows how close the drone became to the steeples of the Houses of Parliament

The gadget flew very close to the Gherkin in the City of London too. Critics are calling for stricter laws

Groups of tourists were captured in the London Eye in other images taken when the drone was flown at dusk

Others were seen on Tower Bridge when Team BlackSheep spent a day flying the drone around London

So far this year there have been three reports in West Yorkshire, one of which was a ‘caller reporting a neighbour for use of drone that was being flown over garden’.

The second call was about three drones being flown irresponsibly in a playing field, while the third caller feared that a drone seen in public ‘could interfere with aircraft’.

Surrey Police arrested a photographer who was filming a caravan site where a woman and her two children died in a fire.

He was later released without charge. Devon and Cornwall Police have been told twice about drones taking landscape photos. Investigations by the Civil Aviation Authority, which licences drone users as part of regulating all civil air users, resulted in its first two convictions last year.

AND IT'S CHILD'S PLAY SPYING ON THE NEIGHBOURS... A drone launched by a young boy and his friends gives a view of some elegant multi-million pound properties in London. The gadget was piloted by three boys from a communal garden, and the footage reveals startling detail of the expensive homes nearby. Neighbours are also caught on camera as they take in the view from their terrace. The drone later flies right up to the windows of the properties and reveals an open door that a different – more sinister – device could easily have entered. Advertisement

Robert Knowles was fined £800 and ordered to pay £3,500 costs for ‘skimming’ his drone over a bridge near Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, then flying it in restricted airspace above a nuclear submarine facility.

Mark Spencer was fined £300 and ordered to pay £250 costs after he repeatedly flew his ‘quadcopter’ drone above people riding rollercoasters at Alton Towers.

The CAA tries to contact hobbyists who upload footage of their drone flights to video-sharing websites such as YouTube, even posting comments alerting them to the law.

And it has recently published a guide to the law with the warning: ‘You have control – be safe, be legal.’

But many drone manufacturers and gadget shops are not yet making sure that consumers are given the leaflet.

Katy Bourne, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Sussex who has raised drone use with senior officers, said: ‘What I found surprising was that if you purchase on there is no guidance to tell you what the laws are.

‘I would call on manufacturers to put these leaflets in the boxes.’

Assistant Chief Constable Steve Barry, of Sussex Police, will within weeks issue forces with advice on the use of drones by the public and how to deal with breaches of the law.

'And over the summer the Department for Transport will stage public events to ‘ensure people understand the rules’.

YouTube footage taken by a schoolboy and his friends using a drone shows his neighbours on roof terraces

A view of terraced houses taken using the drone and shared online. The gadget was piloted from a communal garden

Aidan Pilot prepares to launch the camera. A new wave of complaints have been filed after scores were given the gadgets for Christmas