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Three of the four victims of a shooting in a quiet area near Lake Annecy in the French Alps appear to have been British tourists, a local official has said, BBC reported.

Prosecutor Eric Maillaud told AFP the identity of a dead man described as the father of the family had been "almost certainly" established.

The bodies of two women and a man were found in a British-registered BMW car.

Two young girls were found alive, one eight hours after the deaths. The other is in a critical condition in hospital.

The fourth person killed was a cyclist, said by officials to be a resident of a neighbouring area.

Mr Maillaud tolf AFP news agency the two women victims were yet to be definitively identified. He said a four-year-old girl was discovered hidden under the bodies around midnight (22:00 GMT). She is thought to have kept still for up to eight hours.

Mr Maillaud said the family was on holiday camping on the edge of Lake Annecy in the Haute-Savoie region, which is a popular tourist destination known for its swimming and water sports.

The UK Foreign Office said it was looking into the shootings urgently and that consular staff were at the scene working with the French authorities.

One girl was initially reported to have died of her injuries but AFP later said Mr Maillaud, who had announced her death, had issued a correction.

He now says the child, thought to be aged under 10, is in a critical condition in intensive care in Grenoble.

The car park where the bodies were found is in a quiet, forested area in the foothills of the Alps.

The two women's bodies were in the back of the car, while the man's was in the front.

A large number of spent cartridges are said to have been found on the ground around the BMW.