The Metropolitan Police is considering using eagles to intercept drones as the force looks to tackle potential crime in the skies above London.

Met Police commissioner has been impressed by similar tactics used by officers in Holland, The Times newspaper reports.

Drones are unmanned, remotely controlled aircraft and are already being used by police to capture footage over difficult terrain, including cliffs and remote woodlands.

But there are some concerns that criminal gangs are using drones for criminal enterprise, including the drugs trade, and eagles could be the ideal partner for police looking to disrupt illegal activity.

The hefty birds can be trained to see the aircraft as prey, and smash them out of the sky.

In the Dutch tests, they are rewarded with a meat treat every time they successfully attack a drone.

A Met Police spokesman said:

Officers testing out the eagle-attack as a method to stop drones have found their experiments to be mostly successful, the Reuters news agency reports.

But it's not yet clear how the birds will react in a crowded environment like a sporting event or demonstration.

Sjoerd Hoogendoorn of "Guard from Above", the company working with Dutch police to develop the concept, said:

The real problem we have is that they destroy a lot of drones," Hoogendoorn said. "It's a major cost of testing."