Sara Payne said parents have the right to know

Campaigners have urged ministers to take the step following the murder of Mark Cummings, who was killed by a man who lived in the same tower block.

Sara Payne insisted that parents have the right to know.

However, Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson voiced concern that offenders could be driven underground.

The minister said she understood the strength of feeling of victims' families and campaigners but said new measures were being taken to make communities safer.

Mark's mother, Margaret Ann Cummings, launched her campaign for a so-called "Mark's Law" after the eight-year-old was killed by convicted sex offender Stuart Leggate.

We need better information sharing between agencies, but we have to be careful we don't drive these people underground Cathy Jamieson Justice Minister

Leggate has been jailed for at least 20 years for strangling, sexually assaulting and murdering Mark before throwing his body down a rubbish chute in Royston, Glasgow.

The Scottish Executive has now announced plans for longer prison sentences and police spot checks on paedophiles.

But Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter was murdered by paedophile Roy Whiting in West Sussex in July 2000, said children need more protection.

She has campaigned for a so-called "Sarah's Law", giving parents the right to known about convicted sex offenders living near them.

She told BBC Radio Scotland's Sunday Live programme: "It's just a case of applying common sense to the laws that we have surrounding people like that and more protecting the children than the paedophile.

Mark Cummings was murdered by a paedophile who lived nearby

"I know recently with Mark Cummings the reply basically was that he (Leggate) couldn't be watched 24 hours a day.

"What I would say to that is that's wrong and they need to be looking at that and ways in which other people like him are either in prison or in special housing or being monitored properly.

"Had I known that Roy Whiting was where he was Sara and the other children wouldn't have been out to play on their own."

Ms Jamieson said she would meet members of the Royston community to try to alleviate their fears.

However, she said: "We have to get the balance right. We need better information sharing between agencies, but we have to be careful we don't drive these people underground.

"There ought to be supervision and there are gaps at the moment and that is what I'm trying to address.

I think it's unacceptable that we ask communities to cope with and try to assess levels of risk Annabel Goldie Scottish Tory MSP

She added: We have to get this right in terms of support and supervision in the community.

"No matter how long the sentence, these people at some point come back into communities."

Annabel Goldie, the Scottish Tory justice spokeswoman, said she was pleased to hear that the executive was planning to end the automatic early release of sex offenders.

She said: "We've got to go back to some fairly basic but easily understood principles and one is that people who represent a threat to the community, if they have to be in custody, that's where they ought to be.

"Secondly, for sex offenders, I think it's unacceptable that we ask communities to cope with and try to assess levels of risk.