MORE than 63,000 potential recruits whose names, addresses, passport numbers and other personal details were on a Ministry of Defence laptop stolen in Birmingham in January went on to serve in the forces and could now be prime terrorist targets, The Herald has learned.

The revelation, in the wake of one foiled Islamic extremist plot to abduct and murder a British soldier in the same city, shows that more than 10% of the 600,000 named on the laptop's hard-drive subsequently enlisted, although the MoD says it does not have information to hand on how many are still in uniform.

A fanatic who planned to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier was jailed for life at Leicester Crown Court last month.

Parviz Khan was handed the minimum 14-year prison term after pleading guilty to the plan as head of a Birmingham-based terror cell.

The missing Birmingham database dates back to 1997 and is one of three military laptops containing potentially damaging personal details stolen since 2005.

The MoD delayed telling thousands of RAF and Royal Navy servicemen and women that their personal details had been compromised by the theft of a laptop in Manchester two years ago because it believed the hard-drive was encrypted.

Many of those on that computer have records dating back as far as 1969. Those affected have been informed by letter, along with those whose personal details were on the Birmingham laptop.

The first theft from a careers office in Edinburgh three years ago involved data on 500 soldiers. The Birmingham laptop data involved Royal Navy and RAF personnel and Royal Marines.

The MoD said yesterday there is no evidence that any of the bank, national insurance, passport or home address details on any of these databases has since been used for identity-theft criminal activity or by extremists seeking "soft" targets.

Emergency telephone numbers have been issued to affected service personnel for use if they suspect anyone is shadowing them or their families.

An MoD spokesman said: "Our first priority was to establish whose data had gone missing and to contact them and make them aware of the situation and potential security implications.

"Sir Edmund Burton, chairman of the Information Advisory Council, is currently reviewing MoD data security procedures and is expected to report back with recommendations within weeks."

His detailed review of data handling also follows HM Revenue & Customs' loss of 25 million child benefit claimants' details in the post, the NHS losing hundreds of thousands of patients' records, the DVLA losing three million learner drivers' details and the loss of more than 4000 patient details by primary care trusts in Stockport and Oldham.

One former RAF officer who contacted the Herald said: "Potentially, al Qaeda or its sympathisers could now have the home addresses and family details of a generation of service personnel.

"That's a huge, inexcusable vulnerability and a worry for everyone concerned. Even if the laptop was taken by some drug-addict seeking to sell it for a fix, who knows where it might end up?"