A bear has been spotted travelling in the back seat of a car in Russia, but the driver of the vehicle will not face prosecution because the beast was restrained with the appropriate seat belt.

The brown bear stunned motorists after it was spotted in the vehicle. It even stuck its head out of the rear window of the Volga car to catch a treat offered by a fellow passenger.

The strange incident happened in the city of Yekaterinburg in central Russia's Sverdlovsk Oblast region and was recorded on video by a driver who was following behind.

The bear was spotted in the back seat of this car in the city of Yekaterinburg in Central Russia

Police said they were aware of the incident but they were not taking any action as the bear had a seat belt on

The footage shows the bear's head poking out of the window and then a man's hand offering him a treat to keep the bear amused and happy.

At the time of the incident, the Filatov circus from Moscow, famous for its performances with bears, was on tour in Yekaterinburg.

But the head of the circus Julia Filatova insisted that the bear had nothing to do with them.

She said the bear in the car was a young animal and that is why it was probably decided it was safe to put in a car.

She said: 'Our bears are much bigger. Normally little bears are kind and friendly. If it was more than a year old it wouldn't have fit in such a car and certainly wouldn't have gone inside happily.'

The Yekaterinburg Zoo also denied any knowledge about the animal.

Local police said it was not illegal to transport bears in this way - as long as they wore a seatbelt - according to the Russian road traffic laws.

They did not specify whether they had spoken with the driver or how they had verified that the bear was wearing a seatbelt.

The local zoo denied all knowledge of the bear claiming the beast did not belong to them