Cops in Argentina have arrested a man who broke into a hospital morgue to allegedly have sex with a dead woman.

Argentine authorities said the 22-year-old drifter told police officers that the necrophilia had taken place after he acted out of an “insatiable desire to have sex in the hospital”.

Shocked hospital staff raised the alarm after seeing the man had taken a body out of one of the freezers and was standing over it with his pants round his ankles.

He was said to be still acting out his sick fantasy when officers arrived and he made no attempt to resist arrest.

The macabre crime happened at San Vicente de Paul Hospital in Oran, north west Argentina, at around 3.30am on Tuesday.

The unnamed man said he headed for the hospital after reaching the city by bus.

The corpse he targeted was a 41-year-old woman from a village 70 miles away, whose sudden death was due to be investigated in an autopsy later that morning.

He slipped into the hospital after getting past a security guard who was using the toilet.

A state prosecutor spent yesterday morning speaking to hospital staff as part of an evidence gathering exercise.

The detainee was ordered to undergo psychological tests.

An investigating judge placed a secrecy order on the case, preventing police and public officials from making any official comment.

Authorities have ruled out any link between the suspect and the dead woman.