Users of Microsoft's Messenger email service will be able to report suspected sexual predators directly to the police at the click of a mouse.

In an attempt to protect the 11 million users of the service from potential abusers, the software giant has struck up a partnership with the UK government-backed Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre.

Microsoft will add a "report abuse" icon to Messenger that will link any users worried about their anonymous internet buddies directly to online police services.

Set up earlier this year to provide a single point of contact for the public, law enforcers and the communications industry to report the targeting of children online, CEOP offers advice and information to parents and potential victims of abuse and works with police forces around the world to protect children.

"This is part of our 'safer by design' plan and strategy which is designed to make predators have a lack of confidence because of what is going on behind the scenes while they are online," said Jim Gamble, the chief executive of CEOP.

"This is a landmark step by Microsoft. They could have got £20,000 in ad revenue for the space they have given up to ensure a higher level of user safety and we hope others will follow them."

The debate about online safety has heated up recently, with social networking sites such as Bebo and MySpace becoming enormously popular with teen- and pre-teenage children.

Bebo recently hired Rachel O'Connell - one of Europe's foremost experts in internet safety.

Because there are few barriers to joining social networking sites, or using a messenger service, users can operate anonymously and pretend to be any age or gender.

While most services usually issue warnings about usage - such as not revealing too much personal information - in reality it is almost impossible to police, and therefore protect, young users.

It is estimated that 61% of UK children aged 13-17 have a personal profile on a networking site and many of profiles feature risqué pictures of the user.

In June, a 21-year-old media student from Surrey became the first person to be convicted of child grooming offences after using teenspot.com.

Microsoft's service - which is being rebranded as Windows Live Messenger - is the largest instant messenger service in the UK with 11.3 million registered users, according to figures from Nielsen NetRatings.

This compares with rival AOL, which has 3.5 million, and Yahoo!'s 1.7 million messenger users.