The Us woman said she was raped by her tour guide and other men in Delhi earlier this year.
A US woman has told police that she was gang-raped at a top hotel in the New Delhi during her visit to India earlier this year.
Delhi police launched a formal investigation on Saturday after receiving a direct complaint from the woman, who is in the United States and had initially contacted them through an email by a US-based NGO.
"The police have registered a case of rape and will now verify all aspects of the woman's complaint," Joint Commissioner of Police Mukesh Meena told AFP.
"We had received the email (from the US-based NGO) earlier but could register a case only after getting a direct complaint from the woman," the officer added.
Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has urged the police to "bring guilty to book".
"I have also asked Indian Ambassador in US to contact the victim and assure her that we will not spare the guilty," she tweeted on Saturday.
The woman had travelled to India in April but cut her visit short after the alleged crime, local media reports said citing police sources.
She has alleged that her local tour guide, who had access to her room, gave her a spiked bottle of water and raped her with four other acquaintances inside her hotel room.
"She said that after having water from the bottle, she started feeling dizzy. Then four other men... entered the room and locked it," a report in the Sunday Times of India said.
Police are now verifying the woman's timeline and tracking the suspects, including by checking security camera footage from the hotel.
A 35-year-old Japanese tourist was allegedly raped in Kerala's Kovalam last month.
Last year, a Japanese woman was drugged and raped by a tourist guide in the western city of Jaipur, less than a month after six men gang-raped a 22-year-old Japanese tourist in the eastern city of Kolkata. Five men in June were sentenced to life imprisonment for gang-raping a 52-year-old Danish tourist in New Delhi in 2014.