Tip-off leads Oz police to hiding sisters

Relatives of the sisters who are in hiding due to a custody battle arrive at the Family Court in Brisbane. Photo / AAP

A great grandmother in Australia says she's in shock after someone tipped off police about where four sisters at the centre of a bitter custody dispute were hiding.

Police raided a Sunshine Coast property on Monday night and found the four girls, who went into hiding earlier this month to avoid an order to return to Italy to live with their father.

The great grandmother, who cannot be named, has told AAP she's devastated the girls have been seized by authorities.

"Someone has put us in, told the police,'' she told AAP.

"I am frozen. I am in shock. They've got the girls now and I don't know where they are. I'm shaking.''

The great grandmother said she's waiting on a call from lawyers about the next step, after being allowed to return to her home on the Sunshine Coast early on Tuesday.

Queensland and Australian Federal Police confirmed the four missing girls were found on the Sunshine Coast on Monday night.

The girls are safe and in the care of federal police and state authorities, the two agencies said.

They say no other details can be provided as it is a Family Court matter.

A lawyer for the father has told AAP he was told last night that his daughters had been found.

"It was his 35th birthday yesterday so I can only imagine he's one very happy man,'' lawyer Giovanni Porta told AAP.

He said a staff member at the law firm broke the news to the relieved father.

The girls, who have repeatedly said they don't want to return to Italy and their father, went into hiding to avoid an order to return to Italy.

The order was made last year by a judge who ruled the girls' mother had brought the sisters - aged nine, 10, 13 and 14 - to Australia without the Italian father's permission.

The order said they must be returned until the custody dispute has been dealt with in the Italian courts.

-AAP