Labour councillors have called for an “emergency meeting” of the council to discuss the scandal that has seen dozens of children go missing from a hotel in the city.

The party is calling for Brighton and Hove City Council to discuss legal avenues available to make urgent interventions to get vulnerable children out of hotels and into care.

Councillors from the Labour group are also calling for an independent inquiry held to investigate the role of the council in the “safeguarding catastrophe of vulnerable children being kidnapped and trafficked”.

It comes as it emerged that 76 children remain missing from a hotel in Hove.

John Allcock and Carmen Appich, co-leaders of the Labour group on the council, said: “We’ve written to the council CEO requesting an urgent extraordinary council meeting to discuss Labour’s plans to immediately safeguard these very vulnerable children.

“We want children out of this hotel and into care placements immediately. We want the missing children found, and we want a review into how any of this scandalous crisis was allowed to happen despite our repeated warnings.

“This meeting must take place as soon as possible so that swift action can be taken to safeguard unaccompanied asylum-seeking children from any further exploitation, kidnap and trafficking.”

Councillor Bella Sankey, Labour councillor for Wish ward, said there is “no excuse for delay” and expressed frustration at the Green administration over the "child safeguarding catastrophe”.

She said: “Nothing is more important than the safety of unaccompanied children in Brighton and Hove, so we expect this meeting to go ahead in a matter of days.”

Penny Mordaunt, leader of the House of Commons, conceded it is "very hard" to protect vulnerable asylum seekers in hotels and said the government has to address the issue "swiftly".

She acknowledged there have been stories of gangmasters turning up at migrants' hotels and "taking people away".

Ms Mordaunt said: "We recognise that it is a broken system that needs reform, and we are bringing legislation forward to tackle that, but keeping people in hotels for long periods of time increases their vulnerability.

"We’ve had stories of gangmasters turning up at hotels that they know asylum seekers are staying at, taking people away. It is for very obvious reasons very hard to protect people in that kind of environment, so we have to address this.

"I do hope that when we do bring forward legislation to tackle this issue, to get the system to work more effectively, make it fairer for both the UK taxpayer but also for those very vulnerable people who are being trafficked, we will have support from all sides of this House.

"This is a serious matter, people need protecting, and we must do so swiftly."

Brighton and Hove City Council have been contacted for comment.