Jasmina Dominic, 23, was studying in Zagreb when she went missing in 2000, according to press reports.

Police suspect her frozen remains have been found after the home of Dominic's sister was searched in the northern village of Mala Subotica.

A 45-year-old woman was arrested last Saturday in Mala Subotica in connection with the investigation, regional police spokesman Nenad Risak told AFP.

"We suppose that the body found in the freezer is that of a woman born in 1977 and whose disappearance was reported on August 16, 2005," Risak said.

Although the woman was missing since 2000, Dominic's family only informed police of her disappearance five years later, the daily Vecernji List reported.

Police believe the person in the freezer was murdered but are awaiting autopsy results, Risak added.

He declined to provide details about how the body was discovered, but the local prosecutor's office said the woman arrested was Dominic's sister.

She is suspected "of having killed her sister in 2000 or 2001 and hiding the body in a freezer that was in a corridor on the ground floor of the house," a statement said.

Dominic's father, who died a few years ago, said in 2011 that his daughter told him in 2000 that she was going to work on a cruise ship.