Police have launched a search for a missing 19-year-old Tokyo woman following the arrest of a man suspected of confining her for days and driving her around in his vehicle, officials said.

The suspect, Naoki Shiono, 26, has denied confining Kanako Ishida, and told police she "jumped out" of his car while they were driving in Yamanashi Prefecture and disappeared, they said.

Police have discovered some of Ishida's belongings, including her bag and a pair of boots, along a mountain path in the city of Yamanashi.

The Metropolitan Police Department suspects that Shiono, from the city of Ome in western Tokyo, kept Ishida, from Edogawa Ward, restrained in his car for several days after meeting her for the first time near JR Kameido Station in Tokyo on the evening of April 5.

They are believed to have become acquainted through a cell-phone dating site.