Italian Customs officers spotted the false passport

The criminal ring was smashed when a Japanese man and a Chinese woman were arrested at Milan airport while accompanying a 12-year-old Chinese girl.

The pair will be charged with kidnapping, extortion and associating with the mafia.

Since then, the girl has told police how the paedophile ring operates.

She was sold into prostitution by her parents in China, then worked in a brothel in Thailand before being sent to Miami in the United States via Europe.

Parents told their children are being taken into domestic service

Mafia gangs buy both boys and girls from poor families or parents, who are banned under Chinese law from having a second child.

Italy is believed to be a major staging post for the transit of child prostitutes from Asia to Europe and America.

In just one month the gangs smuggled 15 children to the US through European airports, including Milan.

After the arrest of the couple in April three more people were seized in Japan while three are still being sought in Italy.

Italian police believe the discovery marks only the tip of the iceberg of paedophile crime run by Chinese triads, or mafia gangs, and Japanese gangsters. Their investigations are continuing with the help of Interpol.