Police are searching for this man after a 16-year-old girl's body was discovered in a barrel.

Police have named the man at the centre of a massive hunt after a teenage girl’s body was found in a barrel on the back of a ute south of Brisbane.

Detectives are hunting for Zlatko Sikorsky, 34, who has distinctive tattoos around his neck.

He’s wanted for questioning after a black ute, carrying the body of a girl, 16, stuffed inside a barrel, was dumped at a residential estate at Stapylton on Wednesday afternoon.

It’s believed Sikorsky is travelling in a silver 2014 Holden Commodore with a sunroof, with Queensland registration 966 WKB.

Anyone who spots the man has been warned not to approach him, and immediately call the police.

Detectives have been searching for the Commodore after it was taken from The Lodge Residential Estate at Stapylton soon after the ute and body were abandoned there.

Police went to a home at Buccan in Logan on Wednesday as part of a missing person’s investigation. When they got there a man jumped into the black ute and fled.

Officers tracked it to the Stapylton property, but the man got away in the silver Commodore. When they searched the ute, they made the grisly discovery.

Police know the victim's identity, and that she was not from the area where Wednesday's drama played out.

In Stapylton, a resident said neighbours told her they saw two people let the man into the gated community on Wednesday afternoon.

"They were grabbing stuff out of the ute then all of a sudden they jumped in the silver vehicle and took off," the woman, who wanted to be known only as Sharon, told the ABC.

"One of our neighbours, he saw the car parked up there, and he went to close the door because the door was left open. That is when he noticed there was gunshot shells and knuckle dusters inside the vehicle, so he rang the cops ..."

Other residents have told of seeing a hotted-up black ute coming in and out of the complex over the past week or two.

Police seek Zlatko Sikorsky (pictured) they believe he may able to assist with their active inquiries into the homicide of a person in Logan. https://t.co/vH9MEyU9Iq pic.twitter.com/KnFtlXMjQP

— Queensland Police (@QldPolice) June 28, 2018

Jacqueline and Christopher Anthony said good morning to the driver of the ute on Wednesday morning, before the vehicle with the body in the back returned to the estate in the afternoon.

"We thought he was someone who lived here," she told reporters on Thursday.

"He'd been staring us very intensely and now, knowing what he is and what he's done, it's very nerve-wracking and scary."

Two brothers who also live at the estate said they first noticed the ute a couple of weeks ago, due to the distinctive sound of its engine.

One of the brothers said he heard the ute leave about 6am or 7am, and heard it return again between about 1.30pm and 2pm.

"That would obviously be about the right time when they (the police) were chasing it from Buccan. She would have been, the body would have been in the back of it then," said the man, who didn't want to be named.

On Thursday morning a woman arrived at the low-set, brick Buccan property from which the suspect fled.

She told reporters she was looking for her son who lived there and didn't know where he was, and police would not say if they knew.