MONTREAL (AFP) - A Canadian child who was the victim of sexual abuse has been placed under protection after appealing for help over the Internet, Canadian police said.

The child used the Google search engine to send a message to a site for children in Australia, pleading for help, and the e-mail was forwarded to local police, spokeswoman Julie Gagnon of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told AFP.

The child typed in "kids help," found an Australian site that offers online assistance to children, and "sent a message saying 'this is what is happening to me, please help me so it doesn't happen any more,'" according to another spokeswoman, Corporal Lana Prosper.

The police withheld details about the identity or age of the child, but the CBC reported the victim was a girl living in the province of New Brunswick.

Police in Queensland, Australia, had alerted the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's Innocent Images International Task Force in Washington, which determined the origin of the appeal and informed Canada's National Child Exploitation Co-ordination Centre (NCECC).

With help from Internet provider Bell Aliant, the Canadian authorities were able to trace the child to an address and alert local police, Gagnon said.

She said only that the child had been placed under protection and that an investigation was underway.

"Bell Aliants cooperation helped us to locate this child and ensure that (the child) was quickly removed from the harmful environment," said Superintendent Earla-Kim McColl, Officer in Charge of the NCECC. "This is an example of how children can be saved when ISPs and law enforcement work together."

"The most important factor to realize ... especially for children in today's society, is that there is help out there for them," said Prosper.