The Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr Yutaka Kawashima, summoned the US charge d'affaires, Mr Richard Christianson, late yesterday to demand the US military hand over to police a US airman suspected of raping a woman.
The alleged rape on Friday could spark more anti-forces feeling on Okinawa island, already angry over a string of crimes, including several sexual attacks, by US servicemen since the 1995 gang-rape of a 12-yearold Okinawan girl.
An Okinawa court issued the arrest warrant after police said they had found the man's fingerprints on a car at the crime scene along with the prints of the woman.
Mr Christianson told Mr Kawashima that the US would make a decision after carefully examining the allegations, a Foreign Ministry official said.
It would be only the second time that US forces in Japan have handed over a serviceman to Japanese investigators before formal charges have been filed.
After four days of questioning, police were convinced, based on witness accounts, that the 24-year-old Air Force sergeant had raped the woman in a parking lot near a bar quarter in the town of Chatan, Kyodo news agency quoted police as saying.
Kyodo said the man, whom it named as Sgt Timothy Woodland from the 353rd Special Operations Group, had denied committing the rape. It said he was being held in custody at Kadena Air Base, near Chatan.
The woman, in her 20s, told investigators she had been raped by a black foreigner in the early hours of Friday in the parking lot of the American Village shopping district in Chatan.
The Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Junichiro Koizumi, now visiting London, said yesterday: "I hope those concerned will conduct thorough consultations and resolve the matter by holding talks calmly so that [Japan-US relations] will not be strained," Kyodo reported.
In July 1996, 20-year-old Terrence Swanson became the first serviceman to be handed over to Japanese authorities before indictment in a case of attempted murder of a local woman.