A three-year-old boy went a little too far in his love for a Hello Kitty claw prize machine - managing to somehow get stuck inside the appliance.

A daring toddler named Ethan then had to be rescued from a claw machine in a Queensland shopping centre after he crawled up the prize dispenser in search of toys.

The police shared a video of the carefree child surrounded by a mountain of Hello Kitty plushies as they tried to figure out how to get him out.

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Ethan’s dad, Timothy Hopper, told reporters on Thursday that it was “unbelievable” how quickly his son got inside the claw machine after he had turned his back for a "split second’ while out grocery shopping.

He said, “He loves claw machines … As he always does, he opened up the flap to be an opportunist. Then, within a split second, he crawled into the machine, the door closed behind him. He stood up and realised what happened and he was king of the mountain.”

Hopper added that his son was having “the time of his life” inside the machine, where he stayed for about 10-15 minutes.

“I messaged my old man and he asked me how many two-dollar coins do we have. It was quite funny” the dad chuckles.

He continued to say, “I’ve got a bit of negative feedback over social media [but] kids are going to be kids, they can move in the blink of an eye.” Hopper tells us that he rang up the claw machine company straight away, and they were baffled that a child could climb into the machine.

“They were asking me, ‘How much money have I put in the machine? Is the money stuck in the machine?’ My response was, ‘The only thing stuck in the machine is my child, I would love to have him back.’”