The Defense Ministry said the solder was from The Highlanders, 4th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland.

It said the soldier had suffered gunshot wounds, but his exact cause of death was still to be established.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, on an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, was forced on Monday to scrap a visit to an Afghan town he had held up as an example of improved security after the soldier went missing in the area.

Cameron said he had cancelled a planned trip to the town of Lashkar Gah, where Britain is handing over control of security to Afghan forces, so British helicopters and ground forces could continue their hunt.

“I arrived here today and received the news about this very worrying incident of a British soldier going missing in central Helmand,” he told reporters after he arrived on a Royal Air Force plane at the Camp Bastion base.