Remains found in Germany are those of a missing Second World war hero described as the "most valuable pilot in the RAF", officials have confirmed.

Sir Alec Guinness, on the set of the 1953 film The Malta Story

Wing Commander Adrian Warburton disappeared in April 1944 after taking off from RAF Benson, near Wallingford, to photograph German airfields.

But following tests, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the remains of a body found next to a wrecked Lockheed F5 Lightning last month belonged to the 26-year-old pilot.

The plane had been shot down.

Warburton's remains were found in the village of Egling an der Paar, about 30 miles north east of Munich.

Warburton became one of Britain's most famed wartime pilots, whose heroics were celebrated in the 1953 film The Malta Story staring Alec Guinness as the pilot.

Warburton's work taking reconnaissance photographs over the Mediterranean made a key difference in the Allied advance in North Africa and Italy.

His pictures made possible the attack which sank an Italian fleet at Taranto in November 1940, described as "a crippling blow" by Winston Churchill.

He was awarded the DFC and two bars, the DSO and one bar and an American DFC awarded by President Roosevelt.

There are plans for an official burial in May in a military cemetery south of Munich.