A mother has pulled her child from the arms of a man who was trying to abduct the girl from outside her home in Melbourne's south.

The man grabbed Leigh Wilson's seven-year-old as she played in the driveway of her Frankston North home at 3.30pm yesterday.

The girl screamed as the man dragged her towards his car.

Ms Wilson ran from the home and managed to pull the girl free before the man fled in a late model light blue hatchback.

The man has been seen in the area over the past two days.

The man has red hair, black bushy eyebrows and a tattoo of a marijuana leaf on his shoulder.

He is believed to be aged in his 30s.

Ms Wilson told ABC Local Radio that the man threatened to return, saying that he "wanted" her daughter.

"It sounded like a blood-curdling scream so I went racing out there and a man had her by the arms to force her into his car so I grabbed her around the waist," she said.

"From one end of the street to the other he just kept doing like these U-turns and burn outs then he pulled up across the road and he goes 'I'll be back. I want your f*****g daughter'.

"And that's what is so bad, because I need to reassure her that it's not going to happen.

"I knew if she got in the car, I wouldn't get her back."

Police have released an image of the man they want to speak to over the incident.