Police on Sunday handed to prosecutors a 52-year-old Tokyo policeman suspected of passing confidential information, including criminal records, to a detective agency run by his former chief.

Police said Shunji Haneda, a sergeant at Tokyo's Ogu Police Station, is suspected of passing the information, which he either retrieved from the police computer system or received from the police inquiry center, to agency president Koichi Horiuchi, 42, and his colleague Mika Ochiai, 37, on nine occasions between January last year and this May.

Horiuchi and Ochiai were also sent to prosecutors on suspicion of abetting Haneda, police said.

Horiuchi left the Metropolitan Police Department as assistant inspector in December 1997, and Ochiai was a former sergeant in the Tokyo police force.

Haneda reported to Horiuchi, who is younger but was ranked higher than him, for about two years from February 1980 at a local police post, and Ochiai also reported to Horiuchi for some time in the investigation section at a Tokyo police station, the police said.

Haneda is accused of violating the Local Public Service Law, which prohibits civil servants from leaking any information or intelligence they acquire in connection with their jobs.

The police said they are questioning several more officers suspected of involvement and that they plan to send prosecutors any papers pertaining to the case.