The government has come under renewed fire over plans to retain fingerprints and DNA data of all those arrested regardless of whether they are convicted.

Tory and Liberal Democrat spokespeople have criticised new guidelines given to chief constables that state that only in the most exceptional circumstances should data taken from all those arrested be removed from the national database.

Shadow Tory Home Affairs spokesman has Damian Green demanded a Commons debate and vote on the issue.

'It is clear that the government is determined to set up a national DNA database,' he said. 'Guilty and innocent alike will have their records kept on file.

'It is completely unacceptable for this intrusion into our lives to be made without Parliament having the chance to debate it.'

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokeswoman Lynne Featherstone said: 'The government needs to come clean on this issue. We need to know if the government is creating a database of everyone in the country by stealth or if the database will only be used to store the profiles of criminals.'

Some 200,000 people have had their DNA and fingerprints retained since 2001 when the policy was changed. Previously the data onthose not convicted were due to be destroyed.

Home Office Minister Andy Burnham issued a written statement claiming the policy is justified.

'Inclusion on the database does not signify a criminal record and there is no personal cost or material disadvantage to the individual simply by being on it,' he said.

'Early research has also shown that sampling persons who have been arrested but not proceeded against has yielded a 'match' with a crime scene stain in over 3,000 offences, again including murder, manslaughter and rape.'