A million innocent people should be removed from the police national DNA database, an inquiry told the government last night.

A Citizens’ Inquiry instigated by The Human Genetics Commission (HGC) also said that the database should be put under independent control and criminals who have served their sentence should be removed.

The inquiry evaluated a broad sweep of citizen opinion, said Alice Maynard, chair of the working group set up by the HGC to commission the inquiry.

"We wanted to hear the public's views on the development of the national DNA database and whether storing the DNA profiles of victims and suspects who are not charged or are subsequently acquitted is justified by the need to fight crime," she said.

The database holds the fingerprints of four million people, including around one million who had their biometrics taken, but were acquitted or who volunteered to be on the database to eliminate themselves from a police inquiry.

The panel also recommended a vigorous nationwide campaign to explain why DNA samples are taken, special arrangements for situations where DNA samples have to be taken by force, and that ethnicity should not be recorded.

Earlier this year Home Office minister Tony Mcnulty said he felt that the balance of people on the database was "broadly right".