Tokyo, Japan (CNN) -- A Japanese coast guard crew member has confessed to leaking a video of a boat collision that sparked a recent diplomatic battle between China and Japan, officials said Wednesday.
It was unclear whether the crew member would be arrested for putting the video online, police said.
The video, posted on YouTube, shows what is thought to be the Chinese fishing trawler ramming into a ship, thought to be a Japanese coast guard vessel.
The crash video had not been released to the public and Japanese lawmakers were alarmed that it had been on the video-sharing website.
"The fact that the video was leaked is a big mistake for the government," Hiroshi Kawauchi, a legislator of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, said last week. "It is totally different from presenting it to the public in an official manner, and it leads the people's further erosion of faith in Japan's government".
The September incident sparked a diplomatic squabble between the two nations.
After the collision, Japan detained the crew of the Chinese fishing boat off the disputed islands in the East China Sea. China calls the islands the Diaoyu; Japan calls them the Senkaku.
CNN
