Police say the discovery was made in a copse near to the 22-year-old's home.

Her father had earlier made an appeal for her return.

Miss King, left Chasers nightclub in Kingswood, Bristol, alone shortly after 0200 GMT on Saturday.

Gail Ashton reports on the police search

With tears in his eyes, her father, distribution manager Ray King, 50, told a press conference it was "100% totally out of character" for his daughter to go off for any length of time without telling her parents where she was.

As his 50-year-old wife Margaret sat clutching his arm in anxious silence, Mr King appealed for help to bring Jennifer back safe and well to the family home at Crane Close, Warmley, near Bristol, where she lives with brother Andrew, 25, and sister Sarah, 11.

Mr King refused to discuss the possibility that his daughter may be dead.

He said perhaps she had gone away without telling them, that she may have been taken ill and was being looked after by someone else, or that she may have been abducted and held against her will.

"The fourth scenario is one we do not want to discuss," he said. "I ask everybody out there to look at us. We are ordinary parents. We love our children and we want Jen back."

Ms King was last seen at Chasers nightclub

Ms King is thought to have gone for a taxi or to walk alone to her house at nearby Warmley - but she never turned up.

Police are appealing for information about her.

The total lack of later sightings of Jennifer after her evening out has echoes of the disappearance of 25-year-old Bath University graduate Melanie Hall, who disappeared two years ago.

She was last seen on the dance floor of Cadillacs nightclub in Bath on 9 June 1996.

No evidence has been found of her despite a massive police inquiry, which involved about 4,000 people being interviewed. Detectives are not yet linking her disappearance with Jennifer's.

The man leading the hunt for Jennifer, DCI Geoff Anderson said: "We are always concerned when a person is missing and we are more concerned because of the circumstances of this case.

"She comes from a stable home and is happy with everything in her life."