Interpol question

Your MC would I'm sure have good connections with senior figures in the French Secret Service and would merely make a phone call asking for a small favour

Interpol has a sister system that parallels NCIC. It also has its own AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System). If you are authorized to connect to their system, you would use it in the same manner as NCIC.

Unfortunately, I don't know what it's called.

ETA: I just found this http://www.interpol.com/Public/NCB/I247/default.asp they call it the I 24/7 communications system.

The French have the same division of labor at the US and Britain.

DGSE handles intelligence work (like our CIA).

DCRI handles counter-intelligence (like our FBI) as of July 1, 2008. If your story is set before this date, it would be the DST.

As head of security at the US Embassy in France, your MC would liase on a regular basis with both DGSE and DCRI. He should also have access to CIA databases, which he would search first. If the suspect doesn't come up that way, he'd go to his French connections and Interpol. There is an info sharing agreement between CIA/FBI and Interpol.

If you story is set before 1982, there was another configuration.