KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - THE Malaysian government and the Malaysian Missionary foundation want to help runaway maths prodigy Sufiah Yusof.

British tabloid News of the World in a report on Sunday reported how Ms Yusof had taken to hiring herself out over the Internet as a prostitute for 130 pounds (S$360) an hour in Manchester and calling herself Shilpa Lee.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Zahid Hamidi said they would help her through the 'Save Sufiah Programme.'

'The first thing we should try to do is to contact her mother or arrange a meeting with Sufiah to find out the reason she turned to prostitution, offering her services through the Internet, using the name 'Shilpa Lee',' he said

The 'Save Sufiah Programme' is headed by Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Dr Mashitah Ibrahim who will come up with strategies to assist Sufiah.

Sufiah's mother, Mrs Halimahton Yusof, a Johor-born devout Muslim, left her family home on Monday after reading reports of her estranged daughter. Mrs Yusof is also divorcing her husband, Farooq, British newspaper Telegraph reported.

Ms Yusof who was admitted to Oxford University at the age of 13 in 1997, ran away three years later, accusing her parents of putting intolerable pressure on her to succeed.

She married trainee lawyer Jonathan Marshall when she was 19, but the couple divorced after just over a year.

Ms Yusof's father, Farooq, 50, is in jail for molesting two teenage girls. He had earlier been jailed three years for embezzlement.