The committee's chairman, Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), expressed strong support for the bill.

"People watch these websites that guarantee they can go into North Korea and be secure, be safe, these glossy presentations ? and the reality is that many of these visitors end up being used as bargaining chips by the North Korean regime," Royce was quoted as telling CNN.

Warmbier, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, died last week, six days after he returned to his Ohio home in a coma after 17 months of detention in the North for taking down a political propaganda sign from a hotel.

North Korean officials claimed Warmbier fell into a coma in March last year due to botulism and a sleeping pill. Doctors in the US said Warmbier had severe brain damage and was in a state of "unresponsive wakefulness."

Right after Warmbier's death, Royce called strongly for a ban on travel to the North, saying the communist regime "regularly kidnaps foreign citizens and keeps 120,000 North Koreans in barbaric gulags." (Yonhap)