Japanese prosecutors today charged a US airman with raping a woman on southern Okinawa island.
A prosecutor in the Okinawan capital of Naha said US Air Force Staff Sgt Timothy Woodland (24) had been formally charged with raping the Japanese woman earlier this month.
Mr Woodland said he had consensual sex with the woman but denied raping her. The alleged incident has further frayed relations between Japan and the United States.
Relations were already strained by Washington's call for Tokyo to back its controversial missile defence shield programme, at a time when President Bush hopes to tighten security ties with America's key Asian ally.
Japanese perceptions that Washington delayed before handing Mr Woodland over to Japanese authorities last Friday, a week after the alleged rape, revived calls to revise a pact on the status of US military in Japan.
Under the Status of Forces Agreement, Washington need not hand over suspects until they are indicted but has agreed to consider making exceptions for "heinous" crimes.
Okinawa, 1,000 miles south of Tokyo, is the forward base for US forces in Asia. They can closely monitor North Korea and China from there. The island has 27,000 US military staff, about half the US military presence in Japan.
Okinawan residents have long resented shouldering what they say is an unfair share of the burden for maintaining the US-Japan security alliance by hosting the bases.