Australian police ministers are hoping a new national gun database will put an end to the estimated 14,000 firearms police lose track of each year.

Gun trafficking has reached such a crisis point, an annual meeting of police ministers was brought forward a month to last week to kick-start a national response.

Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare (R) seen here with Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison (L) in Parliament last month. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

That response, according to the meeting recommendations, will include an Interpol-compliant National Firearms Identification Database (NFID), a 'cradle-to-the-grave' new National Firearms Registry and a national ballistic identification network capable of linking fired cartridge cases from a crime scene to the firearm used.

A report released by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) last week showed that by December 2011, there were 2.7 million registered firearms in the country. It found there are more than 30 different databases dealing with various aspects of firearms registration around the nation at present.