The body of a missing Yale University student has been discovered inside a wall of a building at the prestigious Ivy League college.

Annie Le, 24, went missing five days ago, sparking a massive police search.

The doctoral student's body was discovered stuffed into a wall cavity in the building where she was last seen.

New Haven Assistant Police Chief Peter Reichard said: 'It hasn't been positively identified as of this time. However, we are assuming it is her ... so we are treating it as a homicide.'

State police found the bride-to-be's body at around 5 pm on Sunday in an area of the building that houses utility cables that run between floors.

The building is in the Yale's medical complex, about a mile from the main campus of the Connecticut university.

Reichard said police also recovered 'a large amount' of physical evidence, but he would not discuss what that included.

Yale President Richard Levin offered support to Le's family and her fiance, Columbia University graduate student Jonathan Widawsky.

The couple were due to marry yesterday in Syosset, New York, on Long Island's north shore.

Police would not say if they have any suspects. They previously have said Widawsky is not a suspect and is assisting with the investigation.

Le was last seen Tuesday morning in the five-story building that housed the laboratory where she worked.

Surveillance video shows her arriving around 10am, but police had been baffled since the investigation began because there was no video of Le leaving, despite some 75 surveillance cameras operating around the complex.

Her ID, money, credit cards and purse were found in her office.

More than 100 local, state and federal police had been searching the building for days, using blueprints to uncover any place where evidence or Le's body could be hidden.

Investigators on Saturday said they recovered evidence from the building, but would not confirm media reports that the items included bloody clothing.

On Sunday morning, a state police van drove down a ramp into the basement area of the building where the lab is located.

Authorities also sifted through garbage at a Hartford incinerator on Sunday, looking through trash that was taken from the building in the days since Le went missing.

Le, a pharmacology student from Placerville