The body of a US airman has been found in a river in the northern Italian town where he went missing 10 days ago, Italian authorities said.

Staff Sergeant Halex Hale, 24, disappeared on July 2 after an off-base cookout in the town of Sacile. His body was identified Tuesday by his father and colleagues from the Aviano Air Base, a Carabinieri official said.

The Carabinieri is one of Italy's two police forces and is part of the army. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to give the information.

A passerby spotted the body earlier Tuesday and notified authorities.

Staff Sgt Halex Hale (pictured), 24, of Middletown, Indiana, went missing on July 2 after leaving a friend's cookout off base to walk to another friend's home about 15 minutes away

Italian authorities, which have jurisdiction since Hale (pictured) went missing off base, called off the active search for him on Saturday evening

Hale, from Middletown, Indiana, was assigned to the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano Air Base north of Venice.

He went missing on July 2 after leaving a friend's cookout off base to walk to another friend's home about 15 minutes away. Hale left behind his cellphone, car and wallet.

Italian authorities said on Monday they were investigating a body found in the Adriatic Sea 30 miles away from where Hale disappeared.

But that body belonged to a person who had disappeared for at least a month, according to Italian newspaper La Republica.

'We are in a phase of complete hypothesis,' Carabinieri Maggiore Salvino Macli said at the time of the discovery.

That body had been found over the weekend and appeared to have been in the water for a long time.

Italian authorities, which have jurisdiction since Hale went missing off base, called off the active search involving divers and dogs on Saturday evening. It had yielded no concrete clues.

Hale has been in the Air Force for six years and at Aviano since February 2015. He also served in Afghanistan.

Lance Hale, his father, had traveled to Italy to search for him.

'We will not stop looking,' Halex's mother Amy previously told WISH. 'He will not come home without our boy.'

An autopsy will be conducted tomorrow to determine the cause of death.

Hale (pictured with his mother Amy) was assigned to the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano Air Base north of Venice. He had been in the Air Force for six years and at Aviano since February 2015