Amazon has blamed a "bad actor" for racist abuse that appeared on multiple listings on its UK website.

Axar.az reports citing foreign media.

The abuse, now removed, appeared when users searched the online shop for Apple AirPods and similar products.

It was unclear how long the racist language remained on the site, but it sparked outrage on Twitter and the sharing of screenshots and video grabs.

"We are removing the images in question and have taken action on the bad actor," Amazon told the BBC.

The company did not elaborate on the "bad actor", nor give details of how many products were defaced and how long the abuse was visible on the listings.

Nadine White, a journalist for the Huffington Post, tweeted that the abuse "needs to be acknowledged, removed, explained, apologised for asap. Being Black right now is hard enough; we don't need to be called the N- word while shopping online, to boot".

Another Twitter user said Amazon should have been able to remove the offending messages in minutes. "They're still on Amazon UK. Extraordinarily poor site administration," he said during early hours of Sunday.