A U.S. House lawmaker has introduced a bill that appoints a federal officer charged with overseeing efforts to win the release of American citizens held by hostile groups and rogue states like North Korea.

The Hostage Recovery Improvement Act (H.R.1498), introduced by Rep. Duncan Hunter late last month with support from 11 co-sponsors, calls for the president to designate "an existing federal officer to coordinate efforts to secure the release of U.S.citizens who are hostages of hostile groups or state sponsors of terrorism."

The "Interagency Hostage Recovery Coordinator" should be named within 60 days after the bill's enactment.

While defining the term "state sponsors of terrorism," the bill singled out North Korea as a country that should be considered a terrorism sponsor nation under the act, even though the communist nation is no longer on the State Department's list of states sponsoring terrorism.

U.S. citizens have often been detained in North Korea.

It has often taken high-profile U.S. visits to Pyongyang to get detained citizens released. In November, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made an unannounced trip to the country to win the release of two detainees: Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller.

According to the bill, the coordinator is tasked with coordinating and directing "all activities of the federal government ... to ensure efforts to secure the release of all hostages ... are properly resourced and correct lines of authority are established and maintained."

The officer should also establish a task force consisting of appropriate personnel of the federal government with respect to each hostage situation and submit to Congress a quarterly report on each hostage situation and efforts to secure their release, the bill said. (Yonhap)