Nine sex offenders who were released from prison and monitored by Essex Police have gone missing, it has been revealed.

Essex Police are required to keep tabs on the whereabouts of all freed sex offenders, working with with probation and social services under the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) scheme.

But it was revealed following a Freedom of Information inquiry that nine offenders in Essex have disappeared.

A spokeswoman for Essex Police said: "Essex Police is actively seeking each one of the individuals, whose exact whereabouts is currently unknown.

"Those inquiries have revealed that two of those are abroad. We know what countries, but are yet to establish specific addresses."

Police refused to reveal how many of the missing sex offenders are paedophiles.

Each year Mappa releases a report of the number of people on the register for that annual period.

The latest report released in October 2006 showed there were 802 individuals on the Sexual Offenders' Register in Essex.

The spokeswoman added Essex Police had ploughed "considerable resources" into the monitoring of sex offenders in the last 12 months.

She said: "A complete review was undertaken and recommendations from that review were implemented. For instance the central team of two, who are dedicated to sex offenders and tracking those who go missing, has been doubled to four.

"It has to be understood some of these people do not want to be found, they can be very devious and will go to extremes to hide from the authorities.

"This means any public disclosure of information, which identifies a sex offender, could in fact make it even harder for the police to trace them."

"Any information that could potentially identify the individual could lead to vigilante action and damage to the relationship between the offender and the authorities, making supervision more difficult and increasing the chances of re-offending.

"It could also compromise ongoing investigations, or in these cases operations to trace the individuals, all of which have a potential impact on public safety."