Around one in 20 people in the UK have been exposed to online child abuse, according to a report from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).

The internet child safety organisation found that a third of these sites contained severe images of abuse, such as child rape or bestiality.

Nearly one in three of the children appearing in sexually abusive images appeared to be under the age of six and one in 20 under the age of two. The report also found that over three-quarters of the children in the images were female.

The IWF said that Britain had been successful in ensuring that less than one per cent of the material originates here – a figure that has fallen from 18 per cent in 1997 - but the images are still accessible from the UK. It has now set up an IWF Awareness Day and Hotline feature in which Tiscali, Yahoo, MSN and AOL have all formed an allegiance to help publicise.

The Hotline has been developed to give all UK internet users a point of call in which they can report online child abuse. This will be done through a "notice and take-down " button on the IWF website; the person reporting a suspect site adds information by clicking on differen options with this information being passed straight to police and internet service providers.

Peter Robbins, CEO at the IWF, said: “Our analysts witness the results of terrible sexual abuse being inflicted on very young children around the world and then circulated online.

“With the help of the online industry, the 28 Hotlines we work with around the world and our law-enforcement colleagues, the public can help us to remove these websites and end the abuse that is perpetuated every time the images are viewed.”

This year the IWF said it has passed details of 2,092 child sexual abuse websites, of which 80 per cent were commercial operations, to international Hotlines and, via the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and Interpol, to law enforcement agents around the world for investigation and removal.