(BRUSSELS) - The European Union will not give US authorities unfettered access to its police and security databases in order to secure visa-free access to the United States for its citizens, the EU commission said Thursday.

"We are prepared to sit down with our American friends and discuss on a strictly reciprocal basis what information may be needed to be shared to include our member states in the visa waiver system," EU executive director for justice and home affairs Jonathan Faull told reporters.

"I can assure you there will be no general access to the Schengen data, not at all," he told the news conference in Brussels on the eve of a meeting of EU justice and interior ministers where the subject will be discussed.

The nations of Europe's Schengen border-free zone keep a database inculding information on stolen cars and people searched by police.

On other databases the European Union stores asylum seekers' fingerprints and has plans to do likewise for visa applicants.

"If it transpires in discussion (with the United States) that certain types of information are useful in the fight against terrorism and serious organised crimes, and that they can under data protection law be shared, then we will do that," said Faull.

Most older EU states are already part of the US visa waiver scheme.

However Greece and most of the 12 mainly ex-communist nations who have joined the bloc since 2004 are not.

Washington's move to make bilateral visa deals with some of these countries, rather than dealing with the European Union as a whole, has caused tension within the EU and with the United States.

A deal was done last month to allow the bilateral talks with individual nations to carry on, in a "twin-track" approach, alongside EU-US negotiations with a view to all 27 member states eventually joining the visa-free scheme.

Brussels is also concerned that countries concluding such agreements would surrender far more information about their citizens than allowed under EU rules, and it has threatened legal action if the member states cross this line.

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