A passenger from the US travelling on a Ruby Princess cruise ship during a five-day voyage is believed to have fallen overboard.

A desperate search for the man, 72 – who disappeared during the trip to Mexico – has been launched by authorities. 

The man was believed to be travelling alone as officials searching for the man onboard fear he may have fallen into the ocean and died .

A spokesperson from the cruise ship told the New York Post: “Princess worked throughout the day with local authorities.

“CCTV footage has also been extensively reviewed and the ship was searched thoroughly several times without success.

“Having ruled out other possibilities, this is being treated as a man overboard incident.”

The Sun has reported that the US Customs and Border Protection took over the investigation when the ship docked in California.

One Coastguard official said: “What information we have to go off kind of does make it a little more difficult.

“Searching a wide area of the ocean takes a lot of time, and a lot goes into that.”