The dangers of internet sites that encourage suicide and discussion about taking your own life are to be part of an official review of child safety on the web.

The Ministry of Justice is also examining new curbs in the law to stop internet sites giving out information about different ways of committing suicide.

It has been working with internet service providers (ISPs) for more than a year to discourage them from hosting sites that may encourage suicide.

Three other Whitehall departments — health, culture and children — are all involved in trying to tackle what the Government describes as a “complex problem”.

Tanya Bryon, the television parenting guru, who is conducting an independent review of child safety on the web on behalf of the Government, is to study evidence on internet suicide as part of her investigation into the risks from exposure to harmful information, The Times has learnt.

“The review is currently considering its responses to the call for evidence, including those on suicide, and will publish its final report in March,” a spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said.

“This forms part of a wide range of activity across government looking at internet-related issues.”

The work has been given renewed impetus after widespread public concern about a cluster of teenage suicides in Bridgend, South Wales. Many of the victims had posted messages on social network sites.

At least seven young people, all known to each other, have killed themselves in the past year in a series of apparent copycat suicides. Police fear that the prestige of having a memorial website, where friends come to mourn and pay tribute online, may have contributed to the spate of suicides.

A statement from the Ministry of Justice said that the Government wants to raise awareness of the potential dangers of suicide website and chat rooms being accessed by vulnerable people.

The statement said that the Government wants to encourage ISPs to direct people who are trying to access suicide sites to alternative sites that offer help and support. Among the sites they wish people to be directed to are the Samaritans, NHS Direct and Child Line.

In the past seven years 28 people in the UK — including seven children — are known to have taken their own lives after visiting internet chat rooms devoted to suicide or looking at “how to commit suicide” websites.

Papyrus, a support organisation that aims to prevent young people commiting suicide, is campaigning for the 1961 Suicide Act to be updated to make it illegual to use the internet to induce or advise others to take their own lives, or tell others how to kill themselves effectively. A similar law has been passed in Australia.

Paul Kelly, who joined Papyrus after his son, Simon, committed suicide in 2001 after visiting suicide websites, has approached ten leadings ISPs about blocking access to sites that detail ways to kill yourself. “The general response from ISPs is that there is nothing they can do unless a site is shown to be breaking the law. The problem is that the law is inadequate.”