“The owners of the premises are unaware of the activities of the persons making the booking, and generally assume they have come to Newquay for a holiday.

“The booking is usually for one week, after which the premises is vacated.

“Due to the short period of time the premises is used as a brothel, it is often difficult for the police to establish that sex workers are residing there before they move on.”

He added: “We should be under no illusion that prostitution is a victimless crime.

“Women who work in these pop up brothels are often subjects of human trafficking and work under duress.

“Modern slavery is of concern to us all, and includes sex trafficking where women are forced into the commercial sex industry and held against their will by force, fraud or coercion.”

A neighbour at one of the brothels said she saw a number of shifty-looking visitors entering the house over a four-day period with some mistakenly knocking on her door.

She said: “I’ve had two blokes knocking on my door – one at four in the morning – and my neighbours have been around asking if I’ve seen anything.

“It’s a holiday let but it’s just a normal house so you wouldn’t know any different.”