Italian media said the 23-year-old, who volunteers for Italian NGO Africa Milele Onlus, has been sighted with her kidnappers.
Romano is reportedly located in a forest north of Malindi, in south-eastern Kenya.
Sources say she has been forced to wear a niqab, in which only her eyes are exposed, and her face and hands have been covered in mud so as to conceal her identity.
Romano’s captors also reportedly cut off her braids, which were found in the forest in which she’s believed to be held.
Kenyan police have identified three suspects in the kidnapping as Ibrahim Adan Omar, Yusuf Kuno Adan and Said Adan Abdi.
“The multi-agency team assembled to rescue the lady are doing all they can to rescue her and arrest the abductors, to answer for their crimes in accordance with the law,” Inspector General Joseph K Boinnet said in a statement.
The kidnapping is the first involving a foreigner in Kenya in several years.
