A teenage boy has been arrested after fake nudes of girls from a private school north-west of Melbourne were created with artificial intelligence and circulated online.

Fifty girls in years nine to 12 at Bacchus Marsh Grammar were targeted, according to principal Andrew Neal.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said the arrested teen was released pending further inquiries, while the investigation was ongoing.

Neal said it seemed that images of students’ faces were taken from social media and were manipulated using AI to make “obscene photographs”.

The girls became aware of the images being circulated on the internet and raised the alarm, he said.

“It’s appalling. It is something that strikes to the heart of students, particularly girls growing up at this age,” Neal told the ABC.

“They should be able to learn and go about their business without this kind of nonsense.”

Neal told the ABC the students were being supported while the school worked with police to remove the images and find who was responsible.

“Logic would suggest that the most likely individual is someone at the school … or a group of people from the school. However, the police and the school are not ruling out any other possibility as well,” he said.

Victoria Police said officers were told images were sent to a person in the Melton area via an online platform on Friday, June 7.

Bacchus Marsh Grammar, 50 kilometres north-west of Melbourne’s CBD, has more than 2300 students across three campuses.

Neal said whoever was responsible would need to be dealt with appropriately.

“These things are not funny … they are basically vicious and therefore they should be dealt with appropriately,” he told the ABC.

“It’s behaviour that needs to be dealt with in as firm a way as possible.”

-with AAP