We investigate the emission spectra of a Ξ-type three-level atom interacting with a single-mode optical field in an ideal cavity filled with a Kerr medium and discuss the structure of emission spectrum when the optical field is initially in a pure number state and a coherent state, respectively. It is shown that the structure of emission spectrum depends not only on the photon number distribution, but also on the strength of incident field and the coupling of Kerr medium to the field.