The security and justice ministry wants to allow police to use mobile telephone location data to find missing people, reports the Telegraaf.

This is not allowed presently, and a 2014 report from the national working group on missing people said current legislation could be impeding searches.

Justice ministry officials are currently drawing up proposed legislation, which they expect to go to a parliamentary vote after the summer.

Mobile data can only be used in criminal proceedings at the moment but a spokesman for justice minister Ard van der Steur said ‘urgent disappearances’ should merit the same legal options in future.

Madeleine van Toorenburg, an MP for the Christian Democrats (CDA), has called for the new rules, telling the Telegraaf they could be essential.