A US serviceman linked to the killing of a Japanese taxi driver near an American navy base has been arrested, local media reported on Saturday.

Earlier, the Japanese defense ministry has been notified by the US fleet authorities that one of their soldiers might have been implicated in a murder case, Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said in a press conference on Friday.

The US serviceman is suspected of fatally stabbing a taxi driver in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture late Wednesday as the credit card that is believed to belong to him was found in the vehicle, said reports from the southeast Japanese port city of Yokosuka in Honshu.

The suspect, who has been reported missing since earlier this month, is a crew member of the US 7th Fleet's Aegis cruiser based in Yokosuka.

Masaaki Takahashi, the taxi driver, was found dead about 9:20 PM Wednesday in a parked taxi with stab wounds in the neck on a road in Yokosuka. After carrying out an autopsy, the coroner said the cause of death was blood loss.

Takahashi, 61, works for the Shinagawa office of Anzen Group, a Tokyo-based taxi firm.

(Xinhua News Agency March 22, 2008)