A Chinese plane passenger has caused heated debate after she and a friend grabbed a little girl who was crying on the plane and locked her in the toilet to 'educate her'.

The little girl had been crying repeatedly during the start of the Chinese Juneyao Airlines flight from Guiyang to Shanghai on August 24.

People on board said that the child had been so loud that some passengers had put tissues in their ears, and others tried to move to vacant seats further away.

The child's grandparents' attempts to calm her were unsuccessful, and a mobile phone used as a distraction did not help. The airline confirmed that a stranger took the child to the restroom, claiming it was for 'education' to try and teach her to be quiet.

The pair then apparently stepped in, took the little girl away from her grandmother, and locked her in the toilet, where she continued to cry and call for her grandmother.

From the outside, however, the two women told her that she could only come out when she stopped crying and then she could see her grandmother.

Then, the little girl was told that she would be allowed out of the toilet only when she was silent for three minutes.

One of the women was apparently proud of the fact that the girl did indeed stop crying and shared a video online. The video attracted widespread criticism, but some people also praised the move, which resulted in the remaining two hours of the flight with the child no longer crying.

Upon landing, police intervened but only lectured the grandmother without addressing the actions of the two women.

A statement released by Juneyao Airlines customer service said they were aware of the incident.

The company management said: 'We have also received the notification and are investigating internally. A stranger taking a child away is also a decision by the individual, and we are not making a judgment on that.

'The flight attendant cannot be in the cabin all the time. When the child cries, we can certainly try and remind guardians to do their best to calm them down, but if the child continues to cry there is not a lot that the flight attendant can do.

'And if during the time when the flight attendant is not around, somebody decides to act as an individual and take the child away, we accept that this is an emergency situation.

'If the flight attendant had noticed, they would have helped the parent or guardian to sort the matter out. But the child's family could also have asked strangers or reported it to the police.'

Police have been made aware of the situation and are transferring the case to the relevant departments. The grandmother admitted that she struggled to manage the child and lacked experience handling such situations.