Police are questioning a student at an elite private school in Melbourne over the alleged sharing of explicit images of young naked girls.

A 16-year-old male student at St Michael’s Grammar School has been interviewed by the sexual crime squad over the images which are understood to have been shared via a Dropbox folder.

The folder reportedly contained photos of several girls from the St Kilda school.

The school has not ruled out expelling the student under police investigation for distributing “inappropriate images”.

St Michael’s alerted parents to the police probe in an email on Wednesday afternoon.

Head of School Simon Gipson said the college notified police once they were alerted to the issue by a student.

“While we cannot comment on action taken, we continue to make all decisions according to our behavioural expectations framework, which is based on our core values of dignity, respect, care and compassion,” he said, The Age has reported.

He warned the school would “apply the most severe consequences” if police identified any breach of these expectations.

The school did not say whether the student had been suspended but said he would face “severe consequences” if the police investigation confirmed the student breached the school’s behavioural expectations.