Police in Arizona said today that they believe the mother of top United States news anchor Savannah Guthrie has been kidnapped, after the elderly woman went missing over the weekend under suspicious circumstances.

Nancy Guthrie, 84, was reported missing yesterday from her home in Pima County, local sheriff Chris Nanos told a press conference.

“She did not leave on her own, we know that,” Nanos said today, describing the home as a “crime scene”.

Later in the day, the sheriff told CBS News: “I believe she was abducted, yes. She didn’t walk from there. She didn’t go willingly.”

He also said there were no suspects yet in the case, and that there was nothing to indicate that Savannah Guthrie’s job as a prominent broadcast reporter had anything to do with the crime.

Nancy Guthrie has mobility issues and is without medication she needs, the sheriff said, pleading for anyone with information on her whereabouts to come forward.

She is of “sound mind ... The family wants everybody to know this isn’t somebody who just wandered off,” Nanos told the press conference.

He would not go into detail about what evidence had been discovered at the home, saying only that investigators determined “we do in fact have a crime”.

Security cameras at the home were also being examined, he said.

Yesterday, he had said that homicide investigators were a part of the probe.

Savannah Guthrie, 54, is one of the top news personalities in the US and is co-host of NBC News flagship morning programme Today.

-Agence France-Presse