Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

MEXICO CITY -- Interpol is sending a special investigative team to Mexico to determine whether sensitive information from its database on criminals and terrorists was leaked to drug cartels, the agency said Wednesday.

Interpol launched the probe after Mexican federal police official Ricardo Gutierrez Vargas was placed under house arrest as part of an investigation of law enforcement officers who allegedly shared police information with traffickers.

Gutierrez Vargas directed the international police agency's National Central Bureau in Mexico, where he had access to Interpol's database of information on suspected terrorists, wanted persons, fingerprints and DNA profiles, among other data, the Lyon, France-based agency said.

Interpol's Web site says that officers of the National Central Bureaus are connected to its police communications network so they can share crucial information on criminals and criminal activities daily.

Staffers from Interpol's General Secretariat plan to meet with Mexican authorities and determine if there was any improper use of Interpol's systems. Meanwhile, the agency is standing by its man in Mexico: "Interpol can categorically state that it has never been given any reason to question the integrity of Mr. Gutierrez Vargas."

Interpol said the team will leave for Mexico on Thursday and determine what needs to be done to ensure compliance with the agency's rules, which are designed to prevent leaks.

An official of the federal Attorney General's office, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be cited by name, said the allegations against Gutierrez Vargas did not involve purported leaks of Interpol information, suggesting the data he allegedly passed to criminal groups was domestic police intelligence.

The Attorney General's office is responsible for Interpol's office in Mexico.

Gutierrez Vargas, the director for International Police Affairs and Interpol at Mexico's Federal Investigative Agency, is only the latest high-ranking Mexican police official to be detained on suspicion of links to drug gangs.

Earlier this month, Rodolfo de la Guardia Garcia, the No. 2 official at the Federal Investigative Agency from 2003-2005, was placed under house arrest pending a probe of allegations he leaked information to the Sinaloa cartel in return for monthly payments.

De la Guardia was elected to Interpol's executive committee in 2002 but was removed from that post by the Mexican government in 2004, Interpol said.

The detentions of both men are part of "Operation Clean House," a government effort to weed out corruption exposed by the January arrest of Alfredo Beltran Leyva, a reputed Sinaloa cartel lieutenant.

Former federal police commissioner Gerardo Garay and three other officials of the Public Safety Department also were placed under house arrest. The Sinaloa cartel also has been linked to four Mexican military officers and one soldier, as well as five officials in the organized crime unit of the Attorney General's office.