Britain's top ten most wanted criminals were listed on a new FBI-style website from yesterday in a bid to help police catch the most dangerous on-the-run offenders.

The Most Wanted site will use sophisticated criteria to automatically select the ten from a list of nationwide police appeals, potentially hundreds long.

The seriousness of each suspect's alleged crime will be the main factor in choosing whether they make the list.

Those suspected of murder, terrorism and rape - particularly serial offenders -will feature highest in the ranking system, with the most dangerous at the top.

Newer appeals will also be given a higher priority.

Members of the public who log on and think they recognise one of the suspects, or know where they are, will be encouraged to call the police.

If they want to remain anonymous, they can call the crime prevention charity Crimestoppers or even send an e-mail which will be totally untraceable.

Senior detectives are convinced the website will help them apprehend more criminals and prove especially useful for tracking down those who have fled to different parts of the country.

So far, 12 police forces have signed up, but Crimestoppers, which established the website, is confident it will soon be used by all 43 forces in England and Wales. The website - www.mostwanted-uk.org - had 21,000 hits in the first few minutes after it went live yesterday.

Lord Ashcroft, the charity's founder, said: "This is an online facility for the public to view the people who the police are hunting, both nationally and locally."