Mr Jalava says he was inspired by a joke made by the doctors treating him

A Finnish computer programmer who lost one of his fingers in a motorcycle accident has made himself a prosthetic replacement with a USB drive attached.

Jerry Jalava uses the 2GB memory stick, accessed by peeling back the "nail", to store photos, movies and programmes.

The finger is not permanently attached to his hand, so it can be easily left plugged into a computer when in use.

Mr Jalava says he is already thinking about upgrading the finger to include more storage and wireless technology.

"I'm planning to use another prosthetic as a shell for the next version, which will have removable fingertip and RFID tag," he wrote on his blog, ProtoBlogr.net.

Half of Mr Jalava's left ring finger had to be amputated last summer after he crashed into a deer while riding his motorbike near Helsinki.

He says he was inspired to create the unique storage device when doctors treating him joked that he should have a USB "finger drive" after finding out that he was a software developer.