London hunt for US runaway

A high-flying US schoolgirl ran away to Britain after her parents said they might not pay for her to attend a top university, police said today.

Jing Wen Chen left her home in Rolla, Missouri, following an argument with her parents on Sunday, and caught a plane from Philadelphia to Gatwick.

The 15-year-old straight-A student told immigration officials at the Sussex airport that she planned to spend a few days looking around colleges.

Jing used her mother's credit card to rent a mobile phone from Victoria Station in London on Monday, and made a number of calls to the US before returning the handset yesterday lunchtime.

Sussex Police said she had not been seen or used the credit card since then.

She was carrying just a small rucksack, and had around 500 dollars in cash.

Detective Inspector Bill Warner, the officer leading the hunt, said today that Jing had run away of her own accord, but was considered an "extremely vulnerable person".

She had always planned to study medicine at Harvard or Yale, but decided to flee to the UK following a row with her university-professor father Genda Chen and mother Sharon, according to Mr Warner.

"She was spending a lot of time speaking to her friends on the internet, and her parents banned her from using it after 10pm," he said.

"They said if she did not comply they would not pay for her to go to Harvard.

"From interviews that have been done with her friends in the US, it seems she took umbrage at this. She told them she was leaving home, and bought a one way ticket."

Jing, an American citizen who was born in China, had often mentioned a desire to study at Oxford University and police were investigating whether she may have travelled there.

Jing is described as of Asian appearance, and about 5ft 8in with shoulder length black hair.

She speaks with an American accent and was last seen wearing a black jogging suit, black short coat and flip-flops.

She arrived in Gatwick at 8.30am on Monday on US Airways flight 98.