An American woman suspected of throwing her newborn out of a hotel window in Paris, killing the baby, has been detained in the French capital.

The baby is believed to have been thrown from the second floor of the hotel in the 20th arrondissement on Monday morning, the Paris prosecutor’s office said in a statement shared with Sky News’ US partner network NBC News.

The child was rushed to hospital but did not survive, it added.

Officials said the mother – identified as a US national – was part of a group of young adults travelling in Europe.

She was taken to a hospital for medical treatment after giving birth and has been held in police custody there.

The mother was described as an 18-year-old American student, by Le Parisien.

The newborn, “with the umbilical cord”, was thrown from an Ibis Style hotel, the French newspaper reported.

“The investigation is under way and the precise circumstances of this tragedy remain to be established,” a police source told French magazine Paris Match.

The child protection police unit has been tasked with investigating the case as a homicide of a minor under 15 years old.

The incident is also being looked into as a possible “case of pregnancy denial”, the prosecutor’s office said.

This is a condition in which a woman is either unaware of or in denial about her pregnancy until labour.