More than 500 suspected paedophiles who traded material over the Internet have been arrested in 12 countries in Europe and Latin America, Spanish police coordinating the operation told AFP.

Police said 19 arrests were made in Spain, with the remainder in France, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Uruguay after thousands of pornographic images and videos featuring children were discovered.

A police spokesman said the operation was carried out in conjunction with the Eurojust and IberRed law-enforcement agencies.

The Spanish arrests were nationwide, with several made in Madrid and other major cities including Barcelona and Valencia.

According to Spain's interior ministry, the police operation began in the northwestern city of Pontevedra in January and turned up more than 20,000 items in total accessed via a chat room.

Police began monitoring visitors to the chat room and within a fortnight had tracked some 900 connections to the website concerned from around the globe.

Spain then liaised with police forces of the countries concerned before staging the raids.

According to Spanish police the operation was not directly linked to previous swoops on paedophile rings in the country.

The interior ministry said a month ago that 18 suspected paedophiles had been arrested in Spain amid evidence they filmed their victims and swapped the images over the Internet.

Spanish police smashed another child pornography ring in January, making nine arrests in seven cities.

In November, 90 people were arrested across Spain after they were caught in possession of thousands of photographs and DVDs depicting child pornography.

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Madrid, Spain.