A Japanese man has shot and wounded three people in gangster-related violence in the suburbs of Tokyo, before shooting himself dead.

Police entered the Kanagawa district building in which he was hiding on Friday, to find the shooter dead, Shigeki Umehara, a police spokesman, said.

The man entered a real-estate agent office and said he was a member of a crime syndicate before he opened fire around 2:30pm local time (0530 GMT).

When officers surrounded the building, the man shot himself in the head, Japan's Jiji press said in a report.

The assailant had identified himself to police over the phone as Kenji Hayashi, a 62-year-old member of one of the largest crime syndicate groups in Japan, the Inagawa-kai.

The three wounded men were taken to hospital and one was in critical condition, Katsuzo Nakayama, a senior police spokesman, said.

Japan has strict gun-control laws and public shootings are rare.

Shootings that do occur are often linked to the Japanese mafia, yakuza, who have been linked to extortion, gambling, prostitution, gun-running, drug trafficking and construction-kickback schemes.

In 2007, the mayor of Nagasaki, Iccho Ito, was shot to death at close range by a gangster outside a train station while campaigning for re-election for his fourth term.

Later that year, a 37-year-old man killed two people and wounded six others in a shooting spree at a sports club in southern Sasebo city before killing himself outside a church.