Home Secretary Alan Johnson will hold talks with Facebook later this week about the social networking site's refusal to install a "panic button" to allow children to report suspected paedophiles, it was revealed today.

* Click here to become a fan of the YEP on Facebook.

Mr Johnson and junior Home Office minister Alan Campbell will meet representatives from the site in an attempt to persuade them to install the button, which links to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop) centre.

Mr Campbell told MPs he could see no reason why Facebook and other social networking sites would not adopt the system.

* Click here to sign up to free news and sport email alerts from your YEP.

Calls for Facebook to install the button on its website have intensified following the conviction of Peter Chapman for the kidnap, rape and murder of 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall.

* Click here to follow the YEP on Twitter.

Convicted sex offender Chapman used a false identity to befriend and entrap the teenager through Facebook, which has some 23 million UK users.

Mr Campbell, responding to a debate in Parliament's Westminster Hall, said he was "disappointed" that not all social networking sites had added Ceop's "report abuse" panic button.

He said: "I expect those responsible for provision of services online to take responsibility for providing safety mechanisms and information to their users and, in the case of services where there can be communication between people who are not previously know to each other and where identities can be invented, to provide the click Ceop button to allow users who feel threatened or vulnerable to make a report."

Mr Campbell continued: "We have argued... that the Ceop button should be used by all of those sites and many sites have either agreed to take them or agreed to take them at some point in the future, such as Bebo.

"We see absolutely no reason why sites should not do so.

"Later this week the Home Secretary and I will be meeting with Facebook to impress upon them the need to allow users who feel threatened to have access to the Ceop button."