Actor Charlie Sheen has been rushed to a Los Angeles hospital with severe abdominal pains, according to celebrity website TMZ.com.

TMZ.com said that Sheen was taken from his Los Angeles area home on a stretcher and rushed by ambulance to the hospital after a 911 emergency call was placed.

The website, quoting unnamed sources, said an early morning emergency call was triggered by severe abdominal pains.

The reports could not immediately be confirmed, but Sheen's spokesman Stan Rosenfield told TMZ.com that the actor was sleeping in the emergency room.

Sheen is the highest paid TV actor in Hollywood on the most-watched comedy in the United States, Two and A Half Men. But he has hit the headlines repeatedly in the past year for his personal life and for reports of hard drinking and drug taking.

Executives at broadcaster CBS said earlier this month it was highly concerned about Sheen but said he behaved in a professional manner at work and that the series would continue.