<p>Protecting the millions of Americans from crimes and accidents when they embark on foreign-flagged cruise ships has become a high-profile issue for Congress as victims and their advocates push for action. </p><p>A Senate commerce subcommittee will look at proposals today for improving passenger and crew safety, including a public registry of crimes committed on board cruise ships, a 10-point safety plan from a victims advocacy group and possibly putting law enforcement officers on cruise ships.</p><p>Ken Carver, whose 40-year-old daughter's disappearance on a 2004 Royal Caribbean cruise to Alaska wasn't reported to the FBI until five weeks later, is blunt about the need to improve safety.</p><p>&quot;There is a problem with this industry,&quot; said Carver, who will testify before the subcommittee. &quot;The cruise ships have taken the position that they do not investigate crimes and, in effect, almost nobody is being prosecuted or convicted.&quot;</p><p>Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., chairman of the subcommittee, said the cruise industry, which carried about 10.6 million passengers last year, &quot;has avoided regulation at all costs.&quot;</p><p>Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a member of the subcommittee, said he plans to introduce a bill by August to force cruise lines to notify the FBI of serious crimes and require better plans for collecting evidence at shipboard crime scenes.</p><p>Kerry said the hearing would investigate the weaknesses in cruise ship safety and &quot;pinpoint what can be done to protect all those aboard our cruise ships.&quot;</p><p>The House already has approved a bill mandating a crime reporting system for cruise lines as part of a Coast Guard reauthorization bill that is awaiting Senate action. The bill also would require the reports to be publicly available on the Internet and identify the involved cruise lines, which must link to the reports from their Web sites.</p><p>&quot;Crimes . . . should be made public so individuals know the risks of going on any vacation,&quot; said Carver, a founder of International Cruise Victims Association.</p><p>The victims advocacy group has a 10-point program to increase cruising safety but has gotten little response from the industry, although lawmakers are taking notice.</p><p>&quot;I think the fact that we've gone as far as we've gone (to improve safety) is a miracle,&quot; said Carver, whose daughter still hasn't been found.</p><p>The group's plan calls for background checks of crewmembers, putting law enforcement officers -- such as U.S. marshals -- on cruise ships, monitoring video surveillance cameras and increasing railing height to make it more difficult for people to fall overboard.</p><p>California lawmakers picked up on the group's law enforcement officer idea and are pushing a bill that would require two &quot;ocean rangers&quot; on cruise ships sailing in California waters. The state Senate has approved the bill, which is now being considered by the state Assembly.</p><p>Executives of the $35 billion cruise line industry say cruising is safe and point to low numbers of crimes relative to the number of passengers carried and that they are working to keep it that way.About 10.6 million passengers embarked from U.S. ports last year, according to industry estimates.</p><p>The Cruise Lines International Association reports recent safety efforts include expanding video surveillance, training crewmembers on security and sensitivity, using women to help victims of sexual assault and installing peepholes in cabin doors.</p><p>&quot;One tragedy is one too many, but serious crimes are, in fact, very rare on cruise ships,&quot; said Eric Ruff, a spokesman for the association. &quot;We look forward to the opportunity to talk about the industry's record and all the things we do to ensure passenger safety and security.&quot;</p><p>While the industry considers its track record good, solid statistics supporting it are difficult to come by. The association's 24 member cruise lines voluntarily reported 207 crimes on their cruise ships from April through August last year. The FBI found that 135 incidents did not fall into the eight categories of serious crimes covered in the reporting system.</p><p>But among the others were four cases of missing people and another 41 reports of sexual assault.</p><p>Current law requires cruise ships to report all crimes to the U.S. Coast Guard and the FBI when they occur in U.S. territorial waters and some crimes involving U.S. citizens, such as murder, sexual assault and robbery, that occur outside territorial waters.</p>