The software used to launch the attacks, 'Phenom Booter', was traced to the UK by game publisher Activision, which found it for sale on an forum allegedly connected to the unnamed 17 year old.

The youth is currently under arrest and is likely to be charged with offences under the Computer Misuse Act, Police have said.

Such shell tools have spread around the dark underside of gaming in recent times as a way of 'booting' or 'kicking' rival players by locating their IP address from online gaming websites using a technique known as ARP poisoning.

Anyone using such a tool can wield considerable negative power, removing one or more players from games hosted on servers, even making it impossible for anyone to use them at all.

The server or servers attacked were not named but the incident must have been on a large enough scale to attract the attention of the normally remote Activision. Call of Duty Modern warfare or Black Ops were probably affected, both of which are making the company serious amounts of cash.