Austrian police said Wednesday they had dismantled a huge child pornography ring in Germany and Austria.

Three men from Vienna and the provinces of Carinthia and Vorarlberg have been arrested for taking obscene photographs and films of children aged between eight and 12 and posting the material via an Internet forum, police told a news conference in the Austrian capital.

The children were from the men's own families, the police said.

In a joint operation with German police, investigators were able to identify 136 members of the network and carried out a total 178 house searches in a number of different countries.

Police in the western German city of Wiesbaden made nine arrests.

The investigation was originally launched in Germany in January with the Austrian police becoming involved in May.

Among the suspects are Austrians, Germans, Swiss, Spanish, Bulgarian, Canadian and US citizens.