COLUMBUS — The recent success of “Amber Alerts” nationally has prompted Ohio and Kentucky officials to look into using them to help protect children here.

        The alerts, which rely on television, radio stations and police to immediately notify the public of kidnappings, has been credited with the safe returns of at least four abducted children in Texas and California in the last month.

        Gov. Bob Taft has asked a committee of state agency and law enforcement officials to study what Ohio must do to implement the anti-kidnapping system statewide.

        Mr. Taft's spokesman, Joe Andrews, said Thursday the Amber Alert System Task Force will research the best way to start the program and will most likely make their recommendations by next week.

        “I don't think it's going to take a whole lot to put it together, but it is going to take a little more research,” Mr. Andrews said.

        The committee includes representatives from the FBI, Ohio Police and Sheriffs' Association, American Electric Power, Ohio Attorney General's Office, Department of Transportation, Emergency Management Association and Ohio State Highway Patrol.

        Kentucky public safety officials also gathered Thursday in Frankfort to discuss setting up a similar system. The state may be able to issue statewide missing children alerts within a few months.

        They envision a system that combines tone-activated emergency broadcast alerts and giant message signs on highways.

        Kentucky State Police, with regional posts and round-the-clock dispatchers, would collect the needed information and decide when to activate the system — a step not to be taken lightly.

        “We don't want this going off all the time,” said Joann Donnellan, a spokeswoman for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said during a meeting at the Capitol.

        “It's not for runaways or parental abduction cases unless the child is in grave danger,” Ms. Donnellan said.

        Amber Alerts are used by 15 states. They are named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old who was kidnapped and murdered in Arlington, Texas, in 1996. Texas issued its first statewide Amber Alert this week when an infant was kidnapped from a Wal-Mart parking lot Tuesday in Abilene. The baby was found and a suspect arrested Wednesday.

        Cincinnati Police Department spokesman Lt. Kurt Byrd said two systems are in place to locate abducted children. The Amber Alert System has been available locally for two years but hasn't been used. In June, all police agencies in Hamilton County started using a separate program called “A Child is Missing.”

        This program uses phone lines by calling every phone number within the zip code where a kidnapping took place. A recording would relay the details of the abduction.

        Lt. Byrd said it has been hard to measure the success of either program. Phone messages were sent out this month when a 9-year-old child ran away from home, but Mr. Byrd said the child was located without the system's help.

        The Associated Press contributed to this report.

After snubbing Cincinnati, Cosby coming to Oxford
Some won't give up on Sabin plans
Downtown businesses watch plans come, go
Downtown retail projects slowed by drab economy
Food, crafts show scheduled in Reading
Jim Coomer lived the life of a riverman
Judge sentences Waagner to 20 more years for gun, car thefts
Second home for teens
Supporters of Israel rally in Blue Ash
Tristate A.M. Report
Two-week vacation ends for convict
Wrecks snarl traffic on I-71
You've read 'Seabiscuit'; now you can be in the movie
BRONSON: Defending Iraq Why the media get no respect
HOWARD: Some Good News
SMITH AMOS: Policing the police
WELLS: Convention center
Edgewood, Cinergy OK tax amount
Neighbors raise stink over smell
Ross schools reduce levy request on Nov. ballot
Scholarships for the stage
Terminal, not airport, named for Hogans
Bad wigs abound at ballpark
Ohio considers Amber alerts
Ohio may have 3rd West Nile case
Ohio revokes liquor license of Uncle Milt's bar in Avondale
Suspect in 4 murders had troubled, not violent, past
Bridge troubles Walton
Customers would - and do - travel 500 miles for this sale
Kentucky Political Notes
'O Brother' artists to play Clooney festival
Trucker sought after woman reports attack