A US fighter jet has crashed near an RAF base on the Suffolk-Cambridgeshire border in England, killing the pilot, the US embassy has confirmed.

The F-18 Hornet from the Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 232 came down on farmland in Redmere, Ely at around 10.30am.

Emergency services are at the scene, some seven miles from RAF Lakenheath, Cambridgeshire Police said.

"We can confirm that the aircraft was a military aircraft," a police spokesman said.

"It had taken off from RAF Lakenheath.

"There is believed to have been one person on board, and there has been one confirmed fatality."

There are reports the plane encountered problems with refuelling shorty before the crash, however a US Marine Corps spokeswoman said she could not confirm this.

"We don't know at this time if the pilot ejected from the aircraft. It is a one-seater aircraft so no one else was in it," she said.

The US embassy in London said the Air Force had launched an investigation into the crash.

The US Ambassador to the United Kingdom Matthew Barzun tweeted: "The loss in Cambridgeshire today is terrible news, my thoughts & prayers are with all involved."

The crash comes just over a year after a US F-15 jet based at Lakenheath crashed near a school in Lincolnshire.

The pilot ejected safely and suffered only minor injuries.

In January last year four crew members died after a US military helicopter, also based at Lakenheath, crashed on the north Norfolk coast.

The Pave Hawk helicopter came down during a training exercise in Cley Next the Sea.