POLICE in Kent and Essex are trying to establish whether a body found in the Thames is linked to the disappearance of a man from Dartford’s QEII Bridge.

Merchant seamen spotted the corpse in the river on Monday, some five weeks after a van driver mysteriously disappeared from the crossing.

An Essex Police spokesman said: “We are trying to establish whether there is a link between the two incidents. But right now, it is a matter of identifying the body.”

Frank Aubin-Hart, the duty watch manager for London Coastguard, said: “The condition of the body was consistent with being in the water for a number of weeks.

“The body’s condition made it hard to distinguish at this early stage but its physique suggested it was that of a man.”

A man vanished from the bridge on November 30 after his Mercedes van was found abandoned midway across it. An air and river search was launched at the time but nobody was found.

But at 9.25am on Monday, the crew of a merchant ship spotted a body at the Purfleet Deepwater Terminal, just across the river from Dartford Marshes.

Both the Port of London Authority and London Coastguard were alerted and the Gravesend lifeboat was sent to the scene.

The crew stood by at the scene until an Essex Police launch arrived to recover the body, which had been floating under a jetty.

The body was taken by police to a mortuary in Essex for examination.