US wants Europe to use different airport security systems

Published on Friday 22 January 2010 21:52

THE United States does not want countries to use identical airport security systems which could make it easier for potential attackers to elude them, US homeland security secretary Janet Napolitano has said.

"What we want to avoid is a 'cookie cutter' approach, because then the terrorists know about the approach and they plan around it," Ms Napolitano said during a visit to Europe to discuss tightening airport security.

The United States' use of full-body scanning airline passengers has increased in the wake of a failed bombing attempt last month on a US passenger jet, though some European countries are reticent to introduce technology that could violate privacy.

"There is a whole mix of technology and practices that can be done at airports independently of scanners and this is what we are focused on as an international consensus," the security secretary said.

Ms Napolitano is due to fly to Geneva to meet airline associations after agreeing with her EU counterparts on Thursday in the Spanish city of Toledo to propose new measures on airline passenger information sharing by April.

The meeting was prompted by the failed Christmas Day attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner blamed on Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who boarded the plane in Amsterdam carrying a home-made explosive device.

She denied the US was pressuring Europe to deploy the scanners. "These meetings were not about the US requiring anything," she said.

However, she stressed that better screening technology was one of several important elements for protecting travellers from terrorism. Al-Qaeda "is using its best minds against the international aviation system", she said. "We must do no less."