Extension of multilinear maps defined on subspaces

We study the problem of whether every multilinear form defined on the product of n closed subspaces has an extension defined on the product of the entire Banach spaces. We prove that the property derived from this condition (the Multilinear Extension Property) is local. We use this to prove that, for a wide variety of Banach spaces, there exist a product of closed subspaces and a multilinear form defined on it, which has no extension to the product of the entire spaces. We show that the ℓ _p spaces, with 1 ≤p ≤ ∞ and p ≠ 2, are among them and, more generally, every Banach space which fails to have type p for some p < 2 or cotype q for some q > 2.