The UK's Forensic Science Service is expected to launch a database next month cataloguing thousands of shoeprints.

It is hoped that the database could be used to augment DNA evidence as a crime fighting weapon.

The database already contains thousands of prints of popular Nike trainers. Most of the details are being supplied by the shoe industry.

Detectives in the field will be able to make comparisons to the national database over a mobile link. Even partial prints will still be valuable.

After blood and DNA, footprints and shoeprints are the most common type of evidence found at a crime scene.

New laws introduced last year mean that arrested suspects, even those that are not actually charged, can have a shoe profile recorded through photographing the shoe and making an impression of the sole.

• Computers match shoeprints to finger criminals