Two people have turned themselves in and one other has been arrested after they were named and shamed on a new wanted persons website.

The website was launched by police yesterday morning and featured 31 people who had warrants for their arrest who or needed to be identified.

Within hours of the launch two people, one wanted in Wellington and one in the Eastern districts, turned themselves in.

Another person in Wellington was arrested after the police received leads about their location.

Their mugshots and details have since been removed from the site, www.police.govt.nz/wanteds.

More faces and names have taken their place on the site today, a police spokeswoman said. Most of those people featuring were wanted for failing to appear in court.

The list was limited to alleged offenders in the Wellington and Eastern police districts but it was expected that all police districts would have access to the site by September.

More than 80,000 people visited the site by last night, the spokeswoman said.

"It's going to give us a much broader audience of people with potential information about those we're looking for," national crime manager, Detective Superintendent Rod Drew said yesterday.

"We will still be using local media and Police Ten 7 to help us track down people, but offenders can move about pretty quickly, so having a national site gives us extra eyes out there."

A person would only feature on the site if there were reasons of urgency, or if the person could not be located by other means.

- © Fairfax NZ News