Police are searching for a missing boy who disappeared from his school in northern Thailand.

Napaphat Chaisawat or Pleum, 5, was last seen playing in a sandbox before going missing at the Special Education Centre in Chiang Mai province on November 27 afternoon.

Mae Wang District Police Station officers have launched a searched but are still unable to find the youngster.

Footage shows police and volunteers combing through a nearby canal where they said the boy may have fallen.

Pleum's worried mother Patcharida Chamnanrit said: 'My son rarely speaks but he enjoys running and gets along well with his friends. I'm scared he might have drowned or been kidnapped by someone. I am praying that he can be found.'

Police Colonel Thananchai Siriwanna, superintendent of the Mae Wang police, said investigators were considering different possibilities, including drowning, kidnapping, or Pleum wandering into a nearby banana plantation.

Officers also took into custody an elderly woman suspected of kidnapping Pleum.

She was said to have seen him wandering into the banana orchard. However, police said her statements were inconsistent.

Authorities said the search was ongoing.