Prime Minister Julia Gillard bared that a task force has been formed to deal with the kidnapping of a citizen in southern Philippines.

The task force will include a hostage negotiator who will work with Philippine authorities in securing the release of Warren Richard Rodwell, 53, of Strathfield, New South Wales, Gillard told reporters in a briefing in Canberra.

The prime minister also said the embassy staff in Manila are involved and coordinating with local police in the search for Rodwell, who was seized by six gunmen on Monday.

Police have found bloodstains in the home of Rodwell in Green Meadows Subdivision in Ipil town, Zamboanga Sibugay province indicating he or a kidnapper was wounded.

Witnesses have conflicting versions of how Rodwell was kidnapped. One version was that he was taken to the forest while another version was that he was forced into a small boat.

Rodwell, a teacher by profession, came to the Philippines in May last year and married a local, Miraflor Gutang, 27, a month later. He was alone in their home when he was kidnapped.

Local police suspect that members of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf are holding Rodwell hostage. The same group, which also resorts to kidnapping to get ransom money, abducted a businesswoman in the town in September. The military rescued her the following month from an Abu Sayyaf camp in Basilan island.

Rodwell was the sixth foreigner to be kidnapped in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, where Zamboanga Sibugay province is located. In October, still unidentified gunmen seized three Koreans scouting for a mining site in Lanao del Norte province. They were released a month later but one of them died in a hospital from disease suffered during his captivity.