A senior US marine officer in Japan has been indicted on charges of attempted rape and handed over to Japanese authorities.

Major Michael Brown, 39, is alleged to have attempted to rape a woman from the Philippines in her car on 2 November, a charge he has denied.

There has been long-running opposition to the US military presence

Police in the southern island of Okinawa, home to most of the US troops stationed in Japan, obtained a warrant to arrest him earlier this month.

But US military officials refused to hand him over until he had been formally indicted.

The case is potentially controversial because of Japanese outrage over the rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl by three US servicemen in 1995.

That incident led to a change in the Status of Forces Agreement which governs the 48,000 US troops stationed in Japan.

US authorities are now expected to give "full and favourable consideration" to Japanese requests to hand over a serviceman who is charged with a serious crime.

Major Brown, based at the US Marines' Camp Courtney in Okinawa, allegedly tried to rape the woman in the early hours of 2 November and smashed her mobile phone.

An official in the prosecutors' office in Naha, the capital of Okinawa, told the AFP news agency: "He was indicted on charges of attempted rape and damage to property."

The case comes amid a wave of anti-American sentiment in South Korea, where two servicemen have been acquitted of negligent homicide in the deaths of two schoolgirls killed by their armoured vehicle.

The acquittal has prompted calls for South Korea's Status of Forces Agreement to be renegotiated, and even some calls for the US presence to be scaled down.