A British student has been arrested on suspicion of killing her newly-born son soon after giving birth to him alone in her Greek hotel room.

The 20-year-old Londoner, a mother to two other children, was on holiday in Crete with her sister and a female friend.

According to police, the woman had kept her pregnancy secret from her companions until they found her and her baby covered in blood in the hotel room.

The body was discovered “hidden in a towel which she tried to pretend was a makeshift mop for cleaning up”, said a police spokesman.

She was taken to a medical centre in the resort of Malia this morning after her sister called the police. Officers inspected her hotel room and found the dead baby with sheets wrapped around his neck and covering his face, the spokesman said.

A coroner determined that the boy was born healthy and had been smothered, dying of asphyxiation.

The woman denies the accusation. She was placed under guard in a city hospital until she is well enough to be put before a prosecutor.

“A young British girl, 20 years old, has been arrested in Malia on suspicion of child murder,” said Panagiotis Stathis, a police spokesman in Athens. “She will be taken before the prosecutor, who will decide the charges.”

An official at the British embassy in Athens confirmed a woman was receiving consular assistance after the death of her child, but declined to comment on police matters.

The woman had been out drinking with her sister and friend late on Sunday night. "She then claimed to be feeling unwell, so she went back to her room at about half past three on Monday morning," said Captain Manolis Petrakis, the police chief at Malia, where Britons have been flocking for cheap holidays in recent years.

When the sun came up her sister, 24, and friend, 22, called at her room at the Natalie hotel to find, in Capt Petrakis's words: "Blood everywhere, and [the woman] cleaning the floor and tables with a towel with the baby's body in it. It was apparent she had strangled the baby."

All three women had flown to Malia five days ago, staying in one room in the Natalie hotel. The 20-year-old had in fact been more than eight months pregnant, according to a preliminary police investigation. "This was not too obvious," Capt Petrakis said. "When asked by her friends if she was pregnant, she would deny it."

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