Utah is among 22 states to join in the first ever national sex-offender registry, which went online Wednesday.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday that the National Sex Offender Public Registry Web Site, www.nsopr.gov, has been put online, linking some 22 state sex-offender registries into one centralized location where people can search for the whereabouts of convicted sex offenders.

The Web site comes after several congressmen, including Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, have said having a national registry site was a logical next step since the passage of Megan's Law, a federal statute requiring states to maintain a registry of convicted sex offenders.

Discussion on the need to track convicted sex offenders from state to state heated up recently after two Idaho children were kidnapped, one of them murdered, by a registered sex offender who didn't inform authorities of his whereabouts when he left North Dakota for Idaho.

Joseph Edward Duncan III has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree kidnapping in the deaths of an Idaho mother, her 13-year-old son and her 37-year-old boyfriend.

"Citizens will now be able to search the latest information for the identity and location of known sex offenders across state boundaries," said Regina B. Schofield, assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs, in a statement. "This is an extraordinary example of the Department of Justice working in partnership with states to enable parents and concerned citizens to better protect America's communities from sex offenders."

The site currently links 22 state sites: Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The Justice Department has also invited other states to participate, with remaining sex-offender sites to be linked to the national site within six months.

Deputy Utah Attorney General Kirk Torgensen, who oversaw the creation of Utah's sex-offender registry while working at the Utah Department of Corrections, said the launch of the national Web site is a great resource. While it should not be seen as a panacea against sex crimes, Torgensen said any help in combating such crimes should be welcomed.

An official with the Utah Department of Corrections, which maintains Utah's sex-offender registry, said the department is beefing up staff to ensure that information on Utah offenders is accurate and timely.

"We have a larger percentage of sex offenders in our system than any state in the nation," said corrections spokesman Jack Ford, noting that 25 percent of Utah prison inmates are sex offenders. Ford said two more staff members have been assigned to work on Utah's contributing site.