Senior police officers are increasing pressure for all British citizens to be put on a DNA database.

Their call for a national debate on whether everyone should be forced to give DNA samples to the authorities follows last week's convictions of two killers identified using "genetic fingerprints" - and comes as senior Scotland Yard officials have reportedly stated that new DNA evidence "will nail" the racist killers of teenager Stephen Lawrence.

Scotland Yard "is confident" that there will be a prosecution and a trial in that case, the Sunday Times has reported.

Senior officers were quoted as saying for the first time they are confident that new DNA and other forensic evidence, missed in the original investigation in 1993, will enable the five original suspects to be tried for Lawrence's murder.

Lawrence, 18, an A-level student, was stabbed to death at a bus stop in London, in 1993. His parents attempted but failed to bring a successful private prosecution against the five suspects. Last week a memorial erected in his name was vandalised in what London mayor Ken Livingston termed a "disgusting" racial attack.

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Yesterday, the Government said that a universal DNA base was "impractical." But demands from police and judges are fuelling civil liberties groups' fears that Ministers will eventually impose compulsory screening.

The national DNA database, the biggest in the world, already files the genetic records of more than 4.5million people – including 560,000 never convicted of any offence.

This situation could change after a test-case at the European Court of Human Rights next week involving two Sheffield people.

Michael Marper and an unnamed youth – one of 100,000 children with no criminal convictions on the database – want their details removed from the register. They were arrested in 2001 but never charged.

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