AN emergency system to rapidly trace abducted children has been launched by the police.

West Mercia Constabulary has joined forces with the Worcester News to launch Child Rescue Alert - a system where crucial information about a child's abduction can be immediately passed to the public.

Launching the scheme at St George's CE Primary School, Worcester, yesterday, temporary assistant chief constable Howard Topping said: "Research into child abduction shows it's those golden hours within the first hour or two of an incident taking place that we need the public to be the eyes and ears of the police "It's about saving a life and grabbing that time window.

"Child abduction is obviously a very terrifying thing, but it is very rare.

"If you hear the phrase child rescue alert', you know it is a critical event, where you, the public, can save a child's life."

The scheme, launched in partnership with Staffordshire, West Midlands and Warwickshire Police, lets information about the child and abductor to be broadcast through emergency bulletins on websites, television and radio.

Alerts will only be issued if the following criteria are met:

* The child is under 18 or considered vulnerable.

* There is reason to believe the child has been abducted.

* There is reason to believe the child is in imminent danger of serious harm or death.

* There is enough information to enable the public to assist police in finding the child, for example the details of a vehicle used.

Mr Topping said that although the case of Madeleine McCann - who went missing while on holiday in Portugal earlier this month - highlighted the distress caused when a child vanished, the launch was nothing to do with that case and had been in the pipeline for a year.

He said there had been no child abductions in Worcestershire in the last 10 years, or any high-profile national incidents that would have met the criteria.

West Mercia Inspector Phil Shakesheff said research from a police database showed that if a child was kidnapped by a paedophile, he or she was likely to be dead within three to six hours.

Sussex police was the first British force to launch the scheme five years ago, before the national launch.

It has only been used once in the UK, helping officers trace a six-year-old girl.

The system is based on America's Amber Alert, developed in 1996 after the kidnap and murder of nine-year-old Amber Hagerman.