US police have shot and injured an armed suspect in a San Diego movie theater this afternoon, where he had taken refuge while trying to escape arrest.

The 20-year-old fled after allegedly attacking his girlfriend in a California shopping mall parking lot and was eventually tracked down to a nearby multiplex cinema.

Theater-goers were evacuated from a number of screening rooms as officers searched the building, before one located him sitting with other patrons watching "Les Miserables,".

Last week a judge in Colorado ordered 25-year-old James Holmes to face trial over the alleged massacre at a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora last July, which killed 12 and injured at least 58.