Law enforcement agencies in Japan and the United States are one step closer to sharing online fingerprint information related to criminal cases.

A law to that effect was enacted in Japan on Wednesday.

It will allow Japanese police to access freely a database of 70 million records managed by the FBI.

US law enforcement authorities will in return have access to a National Police Agency database with more than 7 million records that combine suspect names and fingerprint information.

Authorities say they want to launch the system before Japan hosts the Olympic Games in 2020.