Focusing on the issue that the problem of graph reachability query with distance constraint can not be solved by k-step reachability algorithm, a method of graph reachability query based on reference node embedding was proposed. Firstly, a very small part of representative global reference nodes were selected from all nodes, the shortest path distance between all nodes and these global reference nodes were previously calculated. Then the local reference nodes were obtained through the technology of the shortest path tree and range minimum query. Next, distance range was obtained based on the triangle inequality relation. Lastly, according to the relationship between the distance in query condition and the distance range, a conclusion of reachability could be drawn quickly. Comparative tests were done on data of social network and road network, the proposed algorithm was compared with Dijkstra algorithm and K-Reach algorithm. Compared with K-Reach algorithm, the indexing time of the proposed algorithm was four orders of magnitude shorter, and the index size was two orders of magnitude smaller. Compared with Dijkstra algorithm, the proportion of drawing a reachability conclusion directly by the proposed algorithm was 92% in the New York Road network, while 78.6% in the Digital Bibliography & Library Project (DBLP) network, moreover, the running time was shortened greatly, which was reduced by 95.5% and 92% respectively. The experimental results demonstrate that the computational complexity of online queries is reduced with a small index cost through the method proposed in this paper, which is a good solution to graph reachability query with distance constraint, and suitable for weighted graph as well as unweighted graph.