Police confirmed the 46-year-old woman also reported as being from New Zealand had been taken by a crocodile in Daintree Rainforest National Park as more details emerged about her friend's desperate struggle to save her.

The woman and her 47-year-old friend, both visitors to the area, were walking along the beach about 10.30pm Sunday when they decided to have a swim, police said.

Senior Constable Russell Parker told Sky News they had only been swimming in waist deep water for a couple of minutes when the younger woman screamed out for help.

"The other woman attempted to try to grab her out of the water and get her onto the beach but unfortunately she wasn't able to do so and she subsequently lost sight of the other woman," he said.

The carnivorous reptiles are common throughout the 1200 square kilometres of World Heritage-listed Daintree on Cape York, with Thornton Beach, where the 46-year-old woman was taken, about halfway along where the forest meets the ocean.

Warnings of the dangers the animals are posted throughout the Daintree Rainforest National Park.

Thornton Beach is not so much a town as a handful of houses, a couple of places to stay and a cafe, where it is believed the survivor rushed to raise the alarm.

The cafe owners were not up to speaking on Monday morning and the 47-year-old remained in Mossman Hospital, mostly unharmed but in shock.

The beach is remote and secluded, about 125 kilometres north of Cairns by road and needing a ferry trip and an hour and a half drive along windy roads cutting through the rainforest to be reached from Port Douglas in the south.