MPs have urged the government to speed up modifications to UK police information systems to enable data on serious and organised crime to be uploaded automatically into the Europol Information System (EIS).

Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark, Spain and Belgium all use automatic data loaders to enter police intelligence into the system, which has improved co-ordinated action across EU member states.

But the UK is among the remaining states forced to restrict the flow of information because any data destined for Europol in the Hague has to be " double-keyed".

The Lords European Union Committee issued a report which revealed that the Home Office and the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), responsible for liaising between most UK forces and Europol, both promised action to enable information to be uploaded more quickly, but only "within the next year or two" .

"Information capture is an important part of Europol's functions, and the government should ensure that automatic data loading from SOCA is implemented as a matter of urgency," the all-party committee said.

Thames Valley assistant chief constable Nick Gargan told peers at one point: "In terms of the better use of the EIS, I suppose a start would be to get properly connected, which we are not."

Unlike Interpol, which reacts to crimes already committed and then transfers information about them across the world and assists national police to track down the perpetrators, Europol stores and analyses information about criminal activity to promote a more proactive police approach to crimes which involve two or more member states.

One successful action concerned an armed and violent east European gang which committed 20 armed robberies against jewellers in the UK.

Over 200 similar incidents across the EU were recorded by Europol which co-ordinated an operation involving law enforcement agencies in Estonia, Finland and the UK with raids on eight premises and the arrest of seven suspects.