The Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team estimated the figure after conducting a 90-day snapshot of child abuse files that were being shared, using the data of internet service providers, earlier this year.

Assistant Commissioner Stephen Fontana mentioned the alarming figure in an opinion piece, published by Fairfax Media, that outlines his horror at viewing a video showing the abuse of a young girl.

Mr Fontana also revealed that 31 people had been recently charged in Victoria after police had executed 38 warrants, finding thousands of child pornography images. A number of investigations are still ongoing.

"Late last year I made myself watch a movie file," Mr Fontana wrote.

"I didn't want to. But I sat there and watched. To see for myself the horror caused through child exploitation and understand what some of our police members are being exposed to almost every day.

"In my 40 years of policing, I have seen some terrible things. But this particular footage was worse than anything I have seen before."

Mr Fontana was writing to raise awareness during National Child Protection Week, which concludes on Saturday.

He was also writing in the wake of Matthew David Graham, a 22-year-old from South Morang regarded as a darknet paedophile master that posted the worst child abuse material in the world, pleading guilty to 13 charges on Wednesday.

The Age reported that Graham, who went by the pseudonym of Lux, amassed a collection of hurtcore material involving torture and grotesque sexual acts with children, toddlers and babies.

His offending, which was investigated during a two-year inquiry by the FBI, Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police's Taskforce Astraea, Canadian police and Europol, has been directly linked to the severe abuse and even murder of children across the world.

"On our own, we can't police the internet – the file sharing websites, the international servers, the peer to peer networks, the search engines, the social media sites, and the software allowing anonymity," Mr Fontana wrote.

"This is bigger than just us.

"We need other law enforcement agencies across the world to recognise the online platforms being used to facilitate child exploitation and work with us to eliminate them."