One of the best known crime reporters in the Netherlands has been shot and taken to a hospital with serious injuries, police said.

Peter R de Vries was shot in central Amsterdam after making one of his regular appearances on a current affairs television show.

It was an unusually brazen attack on a journalist in the Netherlands.

Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra said in Parliament he was “deeply shocked” by the attack.

“We don’t know the circumstances, but whatever the circumstances this is unimaginable and terrible news,” Mr Hoekstra said.

The 64-year-old is known for his fearless reporting on the Netherlands’ underworld.

He won an International Emmy in 2008 for a television show he made about the disappearance of US teenager Natalee Holloway while she was on holiday in the Caribbean island of Aruba in 2005.