Police on Thursday morning searched the office of a Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency employee who was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of taking bribes.

Police also searched the Diet office where Toshiyuki Takahashi, 45, was employed prior to his transfer to the agency, as well as two companies suspected of bribing him, one in Numazu, Shizuoka Prefecture, and the other in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture.

Takahashi, a deputy division chief at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, contacted power companies in a bid to sell computer software that had been developed from nuclear plant designs he had stolen from the government and sold to two businessmen, police sources alleged earlier Thursday.

Takahashi allegedly received 10.05 million yen from August 1999 through August 2001 in exchange for the stolen information.

Tokyo police also arrested Yoshinori Okamoto, 39, a former board member of a computer software company based in Shizuoka Prefecture, Wednesday night on suspicion of bribing Takahashi.

Police are also looking for a 52-year-old former president of a waste management firm based in Tsukuba who is also suspected of bribing Takahashi. Neither firm was named.

Takahashi, a chief safety inspector of Japan's nuclear plants, allegedly began passing on government information to the pair when he served as a Diet aide on science and technology in 1998.

The information he reportedly sold included computerized designs of nuclear plant facilities, desalination projects and other industrial data.

Takahashi is believed to have received nearly 20 million yen from Okamoto and the waste management executive whose name was not provided, to pay off personal debts, but police charged him only with receiving bribes that fell within the statute of limitations.

Takahashi, a former technician at the now defunct Science and Technology Agency, served in the House of Representatives office on science and technology from 1998 until January 2001, when he was transferred to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Police said Takahashi worked on legislative matters for Diet members and had access to nuclear plant designs kept at the Science and Technology Agency as well as other government information.

Okamoto and the waste management executive allegedly used the information provided by Takahashi to develop a seawater treatment company in Mishima, Shizuoka Prefecture, and a waste treatment firm in Tsukuba, but both companies failed.

Takahashi made contacts with electric power companies in a bid to help sell computer software developed by Okamoto. But no utilities took up the offer, police said.