Boris Johnson is planning to give the Metropolitan police access to cameras used to monitor vehicles travelling in the London congestion charge zone and the region-wide low emission zone, to help detect crime.

The Conservative mayor, who is seeking re-election in May, said he wanted to ensure automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR) was used "across all London" to help track down the vehicles of criminals.

This had proved of particular use against burglars, he said. Giving the Met joint responsibility for the Transport for London (TfL) camera systems would give the Met "straightforward access with an explicit purpose for crime prevention and detection".

The congestion charge scheme, under which drivers pay £10 to enter a central London zone, and the Greater London area's low emission zone, which charges certain vehicle types that fail to meet emissions standards, are both administered by IBM on behalf of TfL.

The mayor, who chairs TfL and recently assumed a crime and policing commissioner role for the region – a post he has delegated to his deputy mayor for policing, Kit Malthouse – said in his re-election literature on fighting crime: "In order to safeguard our civil liberties, this will be accompanied by a public awareness campaign, to ensure the processing of personal data is fair and lawful, and measures to guard against the possibility of it becoming part of a 'surveillance state'."

Johnson said that under his watch crime rates had fallen by almost 11%, with the murder rate down by a quarter. He vowed to do more to increase public safety in the capital if re-elected.

"On many of the key indicators, crime in London is going in the right direction and yet there is no earthly use in my claiming that we have the problem cracked. We need to go further and faster and that is why I am today announcing a series of measures – some of them new to London – to tackle crime across the board."

Unveiling the crime and policing element of his manifesto in Harrow, north-west London, Johnson promised to fund the capital's four rape crisis centres for the entirety of his second term. He also pledged to launch a pan-London domestic violence service and set up a taskforce to confront female genital mutilation and other harmful cultural practices, including so-called witchcraft killings.

He promised 2,000 more community support officers and special constables in the capital's safer neighbourhood teams, and local boards to give Londoners a bigger say in how their streets are policed. Among their duties would be the monitoring of complaints about borough-based police officers, as well as crime performance and community confidence. Part of the role would be to visit local offenders after arrest.

Johnson said: "If you invest in neighbourhood policing you can begin to win the war on crime even in tough economic times. Above all, we need to recognise the role of the local safer neighbourhood teams in spotting the problem kids and the problem families."

Labour accused Johnson of making Londoners less safe during his time in office. A spokesman for Ken Livingstone, Labour's mayoral candidate, said: "In January this year the Tory mayor admitted cutting over 1,700 police officers from London whilst he knew that violent crimes including knife crime, robbery, burglary and rape were all rising.

"Boris Johnson has tried repeatedly to mislead Londoners, claiming knife crime is falling when the Metropolitan police say knife crime is rising. Broken promises on knife crime mean broken lives. It's time for a new approach which puts Londoners first. Ken is committed to reversing Boris Johnson's police cuts and making Londoners safer on the streets and in their homes."

City hall said the current police strength was 32,230.

The Labour MP Tom Watson has written to the UK Statistics Authority claiming Johnson has given misleading figures on knife crime. Watson asked for an investigation, saying the mayor had said on four occasions that knife crime had fallen, despite official Met figures showing it had risen three years in a row.

In a letter dated to coincide with a campaign event by Livingstone highlighting knife crime, Watson said: "This is an extremely serious matter, for the mayor to be claiming knife crime is falling when in fact it is rising. I believe it is vital that the public are not misled over these matters of great importance. I believe the mayor's claims are inaccurate and must be investigated."