Tokyo: A 65-year-old man has been arrested in Japan for allegedly paying for sex with a minor girl, who was among 12,000 women with whom he had paid sex, media reported on Wednesday.

According to media reports, Yuhei Takashima, a former middle school principal was arrested in Japan and he told police that he started paying for sex when he located to Manila in 1988 for work.

Takashima said he had been on three sex tours a year to the country and visited 65 places.  During these tours, he said he had paid for sex with 12,000 women and most of them aged between 14 and 70, media reports said.

The man also told police that about 10 per cent of the females were minor.