Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay has been helping real-life prosecutor solve sex crimes

The star of hit detective show Law & Order: SVU has put her skills to use assisting a real life prosecutor.

Mariska Hargitay is well known for her portrayal of Olivia Benson on the TV show and, according to a claim from NBC's Andrea Canning, she has carried her skills over into the real world too.

Canning had appeared on the Today show to talk about the latest episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly.

During the discussion she revealed that Hargitay's work is not confined to the small screen.

In fact, Canning revealed that the actor had assisted a prosecutor in Michigan with thousands of sexual assault cases.

Now you may be wondering how someone who doesn't have any formal legal training would be able to help out, especially with something like a sexual assault.

Well, while she may have solved cases on screen the actor wasn't literally sifting through the evidence for these cases.

Canning explained that prosecutor Kym Worthy had made the horrible discovery that there were an astonishing 11,000 rape kits which were just sitting on a shelf in an evidence room.

Hargitay gave Worthy the financial resources to carry out her crucial work. (Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

For those who are not familiar, a 'rape kit' contains instructions and equipment for someone to carry out a forensic exam and obtain evidence where someone has reported a sexual assault.

It usually contains things such as a checklist, swabs, bags and paper sheets to collect evidence, a comb, materials to take blood samples, and instructions.

But these kits are only used to collect the evidence in the short term - it still has to be properly processed for it to be of any use in court and is no use to anyone if it just sits on a shelf in an evidence locker.

The enormous backlog meant that evidence in these cases was not being processed and so could not move forward.

Worthy resolved to work through the massive backlog of unprocessed kits to see if there was any crucial evidence in there.

Prosecutor Kym Worthy was the subject of the documentary I Am Evidence (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for HBO)

The problem was that working through some 11,000 rape kits would need a lot of money to process them.

“So, who stepped in? None other than Law and Order’s Mariska Hargitay," said Canning.

Canning went on to explain that the actor had 'helped them raise the money to get this done.'

She went on to say how the work is 'having a ripple effect across the country [and] is making changes everywhere — for police departments for prosecutors’ offices'.

As a result of Worthy's hard work, carried out with Hargitay's support, 22 serial rapists were able to be identified from the evidence.

If you've been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org