Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – The communications and information technology minister said sex videos allegedly featuring celebrities made him "feverish", adding that the country needed a rule to ban "negative" content on the web.

In the absence of such a ban, Minister Tifatul Sembiring said he would summon Internet service providers to help stop the spread of the clips, Antara news agency reported. He said he hadn't seen the video but a report on them from his subordinates made him "feverish".

"Why would anyone tape such a private thing?" he said on the sidelines of a Cabinet meeting at the State Palace on Thursday.

Following the passage of the controversial 2008 Information and Electronic Transaction Law, the ministry had proposed a regulation that would justify government control of multimedia content. The plan was dropped following uproar and a rebuke from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Police on Thursday cited two laws that could be used against anyone proven to deliberately produce the video for public distribution: the electronic information law and another controversial law passed in 2008, the law on pornography.

Earlier, police had also cited the Criminal Code, under which it is a crime to distribute "indecent" material, punishable with a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison.

Pornography law advocates say penalties under the Code were too light. The maximum penalty under the pornography law is 12 years imprisonment for those guilty of producing media with pornographic content, or a fine of Rp 6 billion.

Police have summoned the celebrities suspected of being featured in the videos – vocalist Nazril "Ariel" Ilham, Luna Maya and Cut Tari – for questioning next week. All three have denied appearing in the videos, while police have said it was "possible" that the suspect would be one of the people featured in the clips.

The police added that they were hunting those suspected of producing and distributing the videos. Tifatul said under the pornography law, anyone making sex tapes – even for private purposes – could be guilty of violating the law.

Tifatul was former chairman of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), a leading advocate of the then pornography bill.

He said anyone owning the websites hosting the videos could also be penalized. The electronic information law states anybody transmitting or downloading pornographic content could face up to six years in prison.

The video has spread across the country and teachers in a number of cities confiscated students' mobile phones to check their content.

However, Makassar Mayor Ilham A. Sirajuddin said with Makassar in South Sulawesi ranking third among the country's most wired cities, confiscating phones would not help.

Television host Cut Tari on Thursday was the latest of the three celebrities to deny being in the videos. "Even my mother and my husband don't believe it's me," she said at her residence, accompanied by her husband, J. Yusuf Subrata.