You can use ALTER TABLE to set the value of an AUTO_INCREMENT column ; quoting that page :
To change the value of the
AUTO_INCREMENTcounter to be used for
new rows, do this:
ALTER TABLE t2 AUTO_INCREMENT = value;
There is also a note saying that :
You cannot reset the counter to a
value less than or equal to any that
have already been used.
For MyISAM, if
the value is less than or equal to the
maximum value currently in the
AUTO_INCREMENTcolumn, the value is
reset to the current maximum plus one.
For InnoDB, if the value is less than
the current maximum value in the
column, no error occurs and the
current sequence value is not changed.