The debate over whether to give British police officers guns has been reignited following the killing of two unarmed officers, who authorities believe may have been lured to their deaths in an ambush by a suspected double killer.

Police constables Fiona Bone, 32, and Nicola Hughes, 23, were shot dead after responding to a hoax call about a burglary in the northern English city of Manchester. A grenade was also thrown during the attack.

Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Peter Fahy said that it appeared to have been “an act of absolutely cold-blooded murder. It's almost impossible to fathom such an evil act."

The suspect, Dale Cregan, 29, handed himself into a local police station after the shootings on Tuesday.

The Telegraph newspaper reported Cregan had been arrested on suspicion of murdering a man called Mark Short in June, but was then released on bail as police investigated and went into hiding. Cregan is also suspected of killing Short’s father David in August.

Police officers in the U.K. do not routinely carry guns, but armed response units can be called to incidents involving firearms.

'Beggars belief'
Darren Rathband, the twin brother of Constable David Rathband who killed himself 18 months after he was shot and blinded by a gunman in July 2010, called for British officers to be given guns, The Guardian newspaper reported. 

"It beggars belief. How many officers need to die before the powers realize that it is the 21st century and you cannot fight crime with an outdated piece of plastic [U.K. police's truncheon] and a bit of spray?,” he said. “…I am angry some other families have now lost a daughter, sister, mother or wife and it makes me angry that the thin blue line is getting thinner and thinner."

Paul Beshenivsky, widower of Police Constable Sharon Beshenivsky, who was shot dead in 2005, told ITV News that it was time to give firearms to police.

“I think police, in honesty, should be armed,” he said. “I think something more should be done for the safety of officers.”

He said his wife’s death had been talked about for several years after she was killed but then had been “sort of slightly forgotten.”

Read more on this story from ITV News

Sir Hugh Orde, president of the U.K.’s Association of Chief Police Officers, told ITV News that the murders were a “stark reminder” of the risks police officers faced.

“I don’t think there’s any desire from the [police] service, top to bottom, quite frankly for a routinely armed police service,” he said, noting that armed officers were available to respond when needed.

“Whilst this is an awful week for the service, fortunately these events are very rare still,” he added.

Life in prison 'an equal deterrent'
Asked whether the death penalty should be brought back in the U.K. for police killers, Orde said he was not in favor of the idea.

“I think if an officer is shot on duty … anyone convicted should go to prison and never come out,” he said. “I think that’s an equal deterrent and more fitting to our current culture.”

And Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, a Liberal Democrat, warned against a “rush to instant judgments.”

"We have a long tradition in this country, which is a great tradition, of policing in the community, of the police being part of the public and the public supporting and giving their consent to the police,” he said Wednesday, according to The Guardian newspaper.

"I think if we were, in an instant to, in a sense, arm our police to the teeth so they become separate from the public, that would be quite a big change, which would have considerable risks attached to it,” he added.

NBC News' partner ITV News and Reuters contributed to this report.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Russia tells US: We don't want your aid money
• France shutters embassies, schools over new Muhammad cartoon
• State Department: No secret plan to invade Canada
• Early morning fire leaves hundreds homeless in the Philippines
• US Muslims denounce both violence and anti-Islam film
• Democracy declined worldwide in 2011 with Arab Spring at risk, watchdog says
• In Niger, child marriage on rise due to hunger

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Updated at 6:22 p.m. ET: LONDON -- An 11-year-old boy flew alone from England to Rome after boarding a commercial flight without a passport, boarding pass or cash, officials said Wednesday.

Several members of staff at Manchester International Airport and with discount air carrier Jet2.com have been suspended and an inquiry has been launched in the wake of the incident during the height of the summer travel season, officials told NBC News.

The boy is now back home with his family and the airport is treating it as "a very serious incident," an airport spokesperson told NBC News by telephone.

Punning on the popular "Home Alone" movies starring Macaulay Culkin in the 1990s, British newspapers are calling it the "Rome alone" incident.

The case of the stowaway boy comes as international travelers pour into Britain just two days before the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in London, less than 200 miles to the southeast.

"I treat security breaches very, very seriously indeed, so we are now reviewing urgently with Manchester Airport, and indeed the airline, exactly what happened," British Transport Secretary Justine Greening told the BBC.

Five security checks
The boy, who was named in local media reports as Liam Corcoran, managed to pass through five security checks by tagging along with another family before boarding the plane, according to reports.

The plane's captain was notified that his flight had an extra passenger after the aircraft was already in flight, the Manchester Evening News reported. Airplane staff kept the boy onboard after landing at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport and he stayed on the plane until it returned to Manchester later Tuesday.

More London 2012 coverage from NBCNews.com

"This extremely serious matter is now being urgently investigated by officials from the airport and airline. It is clear that documentation has not been checked correctly at security and the boarding gate. The boy went through full security screening so the safety of passengers and the aircraft was never compromised. We made preparations to ensure that his return to the U.K. was handled sensitively to avoid any distress," the airport said in a statement sent to NBC News.

The flight from Manchester to Rome is approximately 1,500 miles.

Fortress London: UK protects Olympics with biggest security plan since World War II

The boy did not pose a security risk because he passed through all of the proper security procedures, the airport spokesperson and the airline told NBC.

"We have launched a full investigation into what is a serious incident, and the staff involved have been suspended pending the outcome. The boy has been returned safely to his family," a spokesperson from Jet2.com said in a statement given to NBC News.

Full international coverage from NBCNews.com

'He seemed ... quite unfazed'
The boy had disappeared just after noon Tuesday during a trip with his mother to a shopping center in Wythenshawe, on the south side of Manchester, before making his way to the airport, a Manchester police spokesperson told NBC News. Local reports said the boy wanted to run away from home.

"He was very talkative and seemed quite unfazed by it all. He was just sat there chatting away about how he'd been trying to run away from home," airplane passenger Sarah Swayne, 26, from Nantwich, England, told the Evening News.

More coverage on this story from NBC's British partner ITV News

"He seemed quite innocent really and I don't think it had sunk in how serious the situation was," she told the newspaper.

"When the plane touched down, he clearly didn't want to get off but he was taken down the steps before everyone else and met at the bottom by a group of staff who quickly whisked him away," another passenger, who did not provide a name, told the Evening News.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Olympic security plan turns London into fortress
• Spain teeters on the edge of a steep 'fiscal cliff'
• Going for gold: British workers cash in on Olympics with strike threats
• Ice melt found across 97 percent of Greenland, satellites show
• Afghan police commander leads defection to Taliban
• This family's Olympic odyssey includes bikes, satellite dish, reindeer pelts
• In Kenya, cell phones can do everything

Follow World News on NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Greater Manchester Police

Eight of the nine men convicted Tuesday as part Greater Manchester Police's investigation into child sexual exploitation are seen here. Clockwise from top left: Abdul Aziz, Abdul Qayyum, Adil Khan, Hamid Safi, Abdul Rauf, Mohammed Sajid, Mohammed Amin and Kabeer Hassan.

LONDON -- Nine men were jailed on Wednesday for grooming and sexually exploiting girls aged as young as 13 in the north of England.

Five victims were "shared" by Kabeer Hassan, Abdul Aziz, Abdul Rauf, Mohammed Sajid, Adil Khan, Abdul Qayyum, Mohammed Amin, Hamid Safi and a 59-year-old man who cannot be named for legal reasons, The Guardian reported. 

The Times

The front page of Wednesday's Times newspaper, in London.

The men were aged between 24 and 59, all but one were of Pakistani heritage. The other was from Afghanistan. They were found guilty of conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child, the BBC News reported. Other convictions included rape, sexual assault and sexual activity with a child.

They were given sentences ranging from four to 19 years, the BBC reported.

Jurors were told that the men gave the victims alcohol and drugs and then would "pass them around" for sex, according to the BBC. Some of the victims were forced to have sex with "several men in a day, several times a week," the jury heard.

NBC News Correspondent Tazeen Ahmad: Investigating Britain's 'sex gangs'

The gang preyed on girls -- all of whom were white -- from "chaotic" backgrounds, the BBC quoted the police as saying. 

The men, who live in the run-down industrial towns of Rochdale and Oldham, were found guilty on Tuesday. Two others were acquitted after the 11-month trial. 

50 members of grooming gang?
It emerged after the conviction that police believed the grooming gang had 50 members, the Manchester Evening News reported.

Sentencing the men, Judge Gerald Clifton said they treated the girls "as though they were worthless and beyond respect," the BBC reported.

"One of the factors leading to that was the fact that they were not part of your community or religion," he added. "Some of you, when arrested, said it (the prosecution) was triggered by race. That is nonsense. What triggered this prosecution was your lust and greed."

Police and social workers have been accused of initially not acting on allegations raised in 2008 for fear of appearing racist.

"This is an absolute scandal. They were petrified of being called racist and so reverted to the default of political correctness," former member of parliament Ann Cryer told The Daily Telegraph.  "They had a greater fear of being perceived in that light than in dealing with the issues in front of them."

The tabloid Daily Mail newspaper ran the front-page headline: "Why did no one listen to teenage victims of sex gang?"

Cop: 'Not a racial issue'
However, a senior police officer involved in the investigation rejected calls for the case to be seen through the prism of race. 

"It is not a racial issue. This is about adults preying on vulnerable young children," the Telegraph quoted Assistant Chief Constable Steve Heywood of Greater Manchester Police as saying. "It just happens that in this particular area and time the demographics were that these were Asian men."

"I am currently running several other inquiries about on-street grooming and it is not Asian men," BBC News quoted Heywood as saying.

Nevertheless, the case was seized on by the head of the far-right British National Party (BNP), raising the specter of an extremist backlash.

The leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, tweeted before the jury had announced its decision that seven verdicts had been reached. It is not clear how he learned of the jury's decision given that strict reporting restrictions were in place. 

The case has already sparked protests by far-right groups. Greater Manchester Police said on Wednesday they were preparing for possible racially motivated violence. 

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Study: Plastic in 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' increases 100-fold
• US charity's gift to UK troops: $2 million for 'sanctuary'
• $868K mystery: Nigeria stock exchange's yacht, Rolexes vanish
• UK jails 9 members of sex gang who 'shared' teen girls
• Heathrow chaos: Travelers spend longer in line than on jets
• Leak hits Shell Nigeria pipeline at center of environmental case
• Story of vengeful jilted dentist WAS too good to be true
• Poll: Most Egyptians think US aid billions have 'negative effect'
• London jogger: Dustin Hoffman 'saved my life'

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world