LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles officials on Friday were investigating an early morning car crash in which actor Charlie Sheen's stolen luxury automobile drove off a road and plunged down a hillside.

Sheen, star of TV sitcom "Two and a Half Men" who was arrested in December in Colorado on suspicion of assaulting his wife, was not in the car, nor could search teams from the Los Angeles Fire Department locate the driver.

Sheen called police in the early morning to report the car was stolen, according to a police spokesman.

Fire officials said they first received a call of a "vehicle over the side" of famed Mulholland Drive in the hills above Los Angeles at just after 4:00 a.m. (7:00 am edt/12:00 pm gmt), and immediately began a search.

Sheen, 44, was arrested on December 25 in Aspen, Colorado, after his wife, Brooke Mueller, told police he had pulled a knife on her during an argument and threatened to have her killed. Sheen is due in a Colorado courtroom for a hearing on the matter on Monday.