Toyota Motor Co.'s trouble with sticking gas pedals is quickly growing into a crisis, with talk of a congressional investigation and that the halt of production and sales in the United States will spread around the world.

Tuesday, Toyota announced that production of eight cars and trucks involved in a recall of 2.3 million vehicles would temporarily stop next Monday.

"I think this is having a far-reaching impact," said Jack Nerad, editorial director for Kelley Blue Book. "My best guess is that Toyota doesn't have a definite answer to the cause and solution. And in the absence of knowledge, there's speculation."

"We want to find out what Toyota knows about the sudden acceleration problem with several of their vehicles, and we want to know what will be done to protect consumers who are currently driving those vehicles," Bart Stupak, a Congressman from Michigan, said Wednesday.

Mr. Stupak is a senior member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which held high-profile hearings and pushed for new auto safety requirements following the massive recall of Firestone tires in 2000.

Also Wednesday, federal officials said they took the first step in initiating a production stoppage of the vehicles involved in the recall.

The "reason Toyota decided to do the recall and to stop manufacturing was because we asked them to," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.

David Strickland, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said: "Toyota was complying with the law. They consulted with the agency. We informed them of the obligation, and they complied."

But Mr. Strickland and others declined to explain why, if the law required taking the step of stopping production, Toyota failed to stop selling the cars five days earlier when it announced the recall.

The Japanese automaker said the sales suspension included the following models: the 2009-2010 RAV4, the 2009-2010 Corolla, the 2007-2010 Camry, the 2009-2010 Matrix, the 2005-2010 Avalon, the 2010 Highlander, the 2007-2010 Tundra and the 2008-2010 Sequoia.

Other countries are investigating whether the U.S. recall should be expanded.

"Unfortunately for Toyota, the sticking throttle issue is now going global. Reports this morning are that they are in discussions with European governments on the best way to address a recall and suspension of production and sales, similar to what was announced yesterday for the United States and Canada," said James Bell, executive marketing analyst at Kelley Blue Book. "The only question that seems to remain is what impact all of this news will have on their existing customers' loyalty as well as their reputation for quality with new buyers."

Industry experts say Toyota's predicament is quickly turning into a textbook lesson in how not to manage a crisis that could do major damage to a company's image and sales.

"What you had before production was stopped was little pieces of news leaking out one after another. It creates a vacuum in the absence of hard facts. And it will create rumors because people want to know. People want information," said Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of Edmunds.Com, one of the nation's leading automotive websites. "Right now, you'll have people in Washington who want to score points and pretty soon everybody will want to jump in.

"If I was Toyota, I'd be out front right now saying 'We did this because it's the right thing to do. We don't put our profit before customer safety. We did it before the government and not because of the government,' " he added.

"They will need to convince customers that they are moving forward to [produce] the most safe, reliable vehicles out there. They will need to leapfrog the competition to get the confidence back," said Jake Fisher, a senior automotive engineer with Consumer Reports.

Toyota also will have to calculate what the competition, particularly Ford and Hyundai, will do in response.

"I'd be very surprised if Ford and Hyundai aren't trying to figure out how to lure those Toyota buyers away now. I'm waiting to see, 'Trade in a Toyota and get $1,000 more off the price,'" Mr. Fisher said.

"The major question on that is that they suspended sales of these models yesterday. Well, what about the person who bought [his] new Toyota the day before that?" Mr. Nerad asked.

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