A facile sol-gel and hydrothermal process has been developed to prepare the Ag nanoparticles supported TiO2 nanostructures. The chemical composition and structure of the products have been characterized systematically with XRD, HRTEM and XPS spectrum. The results indicate that Ag species nanoparticles dispersed uniformly on the TiO2 nanostructured surface are of metallic nature. A possible mechanism has been proposed to explain the formation of silver nanoparticles on TiO2 nanostructures with high dispersion. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.