The warning follows complaints that an English exam paper last Thursday contained questions from an article on the Web as well as the Internet address - allowing some candidates sitting for the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination to access the site on their phones for the answers during the exam.

By Monday, about 100 candidates had complained and more than 18,000 had signed an online petition demanding the authority ignore answers for that part of the paper.

The authority's deputy secretary- general, Francis Cheung Wing-ming, said it will consider proposing that cheating become a criminal offense, following the lead of the mainland and Taiwan.

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"Making it a crime can prevent cheating and alert candidates to the seriousness of the offense," he said.

The authority may also prohibit candidates bringing phones and other digital devices to the exams.

But Cheung stressed that so far there is no evidence any candidate had cheated during the exam. The authority has sought the opinion of the police about a further investigation.

It has also sent letters to the Office of the Telecommunications Authority requesting data on how many mobile users had browsed the Web site during the exam.

It will also require exam supervisors to identify those students who had gone to the toilet during the exam.

Cheung said the authority hopes to get information from Internet providers too. But as cheating in exams is currently not a criminal offense, it is difficult for Internet providers to provide information, he said.

Candidates found to have cheated will have their results canceled, Cheung said.

Permanent Secretary for Education and Manpower Fanny Law Fan Chiu- fun said the authority should review its current policy on exam questions.

Education sector lawmaker Cheung Man-kwong said the authority appeared to make blunders every year and that it should not include the Web site addresses of articles used in exam papers.

Oreo Ng Chi-wai, a Secondary Five candidate from CCC Heep Woh College, said the results of that part of the exam should be canceled.