Criminals will find it increasingly difficult to “hotfoot it”, with the introduction of the world’s first national database of footwear.

The database, which has been set up by the Forensic Science Service, will hold the prints left by trainers, boots and shoes at crime scenes.

It already contains 1,000 patterns from Nike trainers, the most popular footwear for criminals, but thousands of other makes, including the high street’s most popular trainers and boots, are being supplied by the shoe industry.

Even if a suspect has left only a partial footprint, scientists should be able to tell police what brand and style of shoe was worn.

If suspects claim the shoes are not theirs or that they had not been wearing them, scientists will be able to test their claims using a technique known as “Cinderella analysis”, which compares the wear on other shoes worn by them.

Romille Piercy, violent-crime manager for the Forensic Science Service’s laboratory in London, said that officers were recovering footwear marks from 40 per cent of sites they were called to examine.

More than a century after Sherlock Holmes noted that footprints were vital to “detective science”, legislation now supports him. Shoeprints have been given the same legal status as DNA or fingerprints and police have the power to take a shoeprint from a suspect.

Scientists use ultraviolet light to uncover potential shoe marks, which can be taken off many surfaces, including the skin of a body, although the smoother the surface the better. However, Dr Piercy admitted that even with the latest techniques, scientists still struggled to find evidence on carpets. Photographs or plaster-casts of the marks are analysed in laboratories then scanned and added to the database.

The Forensic Science Service said that shoeprints could be transmitted to the national database for instant comparison from one its mobile laboratories. Dr Piercy said that the new database, which is introduced next month and will be available to forensic science laboratories around the country and the police, would provide important intelligence and allow police to piece together the patterns of behaviour by persistent criminals such as burglars.

The Cinderella technique would also help police to catch out suspects. Scientists say that the imprint on insoles is highly distinctive because it depends on factors such as what shoes the person has worn in the past or how someone walks. The insole impressions of identical twins would not be the same.

The technique involves analysing the positions and pressure points of the toes, the shape of the ball of the foot, heel and instep areas as well as the creasing on shoe uppers.

Scientists will compare the footwear that the suspect wears regularly. Suspects can also be asked to walk barefoot along a line of paper sheets with ink on the soles of their feet. This leaves a pattern of movement that can be compared with the wear in a shoe. The analysis was used last year to help to convict Danny Preddie for the killing of Damilola Taylor in southeast London in 2000.

The national database will begin with records held by the Metropolitan Police and then expand but Dr Piercy said that it was too early to estimate its national size.

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