A new Ukip poster for the upcoming EU referendum has been condemned as "disgusting" by the First Minister.

Nicola Sturgeon made the comment on Twitter after UKIP leader Nigel Farage launched the poster in London earlier on Thursday, which calls for Britain to "take back control" of its borders.

It is specifically a party-political poster promoting a Leave vote and is not connected to the official Leave campaign.

The image shows a huge queue of non-white people crossing between Croatia and Slovenia on their way to a refugee camp in a photograph taken last October.

Farage denied the people pictured were necessarily refugees fleeing war-torn Syria, saying: "We don't know that."

The First Minister tweeted images from the poster launch and commented: "This is disgusting".

The Ukip leader, who launched the poster on a battle bus tour through Westminster with ten vans following emblazoned with the image, said it was "accurate".

Farage said: "This is a photograph, an accurate, undoctored photograph, taken on October 15 last year following Angela Merkel's call in the summer and, frankly, if you believe, as I have always believed, that we should open our hearts to genuine refugees, that's one thing.

"But, frankly, as you can see from this picture, most of the people coming are young males and, yes, they may be coming from countries that are not in a very happy state, they may be coming from places that are poorer than us, but the EU has made a fundamental error that risks the security of everybody."

When it was put to him that the people in the image were refugees, he said: "You don't know that - they are coming from all over the world."

Farage added: "You will find very few people that came into Europe last year would actually qualify as genuine refugees."

The Ukip leader also said ISIS had likely used the refugee crisis "to flood the continent with their jihadi terrorists".

The Remain campaign in Scotland said the poster was "just offensive".

A Scotland Stronger in Europe spokesman said: "The Leave campaign has nothing to do with the reality of the European Union - it is just a tawdry attempt to whip up hatred and xenophobia, even sinking to using images of distressed people, including women and children.

"I think people in Scotland will recoil from it. Remain is the positive choice because it is best for our economy, which means more jobs, lower prices and more resources to invest in public services.

"Leave has lost the economic argument, and this latest offensive is just offensive."

The Scottish Vote Leave campaign did not wish to comment.