At Admin Panel -> Settings -> Switches you have an option "assign to new account." If you activate it, the "Edit Topic" and "Submit Topic" pages will show a prompt for a username, email and password to give to a new account which will take over control of the link. Of course topic owners don't have to cede control, they can just use the option if they want to.

If the submitter/editor uses an existing username, the topic will be assigned to that existing account instead of a creating a new account.

The new owner of the topic will recieve an email, based on email_assignedbody / email_assignedsubject, with their login details.

This option probably isn't useful for most sites, but may be for some where the person who submits a topic does so on behalf of someone else who will later want to take over.