Three Irish men are among 1,000 people who have been identified in an international online child sex abuse investigation.

The undercover operation was carried out by the children's charity Terre des Hommes based in the Netherlands.

Researchers from the agency posed online as a fictional 10-year-old girl from the Philippines, named 'Sweetie', for 10 weeks.

In total over 20,000 men from 71 different countries made approaches seeking webcam sex performances.

Details of 1,000 suspected paedophiles including the Irish men have been handed over to Interpol who are expected to contact gardai.

The rights group said it wanted to raise the alarm about the new form of child exploitation, known as webcam child sex tourism.

While they were chatting, researchers gathered information about the customers through social media.