A 52-year-old Tokyo policeman has been arrested for allegedly leaking confidential information, including criminal records, to a private detective agency run by a former high-ranking police officer.

Shunji Haneda, a sergeant at Ogu Police Station in Arawaka Ward, allegedly passed the information to agency president Koichi Horiuchi, a 42-year-old former assistant police inspector, and his 37-year-old colleague Mika Ochiai, both of whom were arrested on suspicion of abetting Haneda.

Investigators believe information on individual's criminal records was continuously passed via Horiuchi's personal connections with active officers, with the data then used for credit research.