Tighter computer checks on air passengers

Airline passengers travelling from three major UK airports are to be screened as potential terrorist suspects, under controversial plans to be unveiled by ministers.

The Home Office, police and two airlines are drafting plans to cross-check passenger names against police, Security Service and immigration databases for flights from Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted as part of measures to tighten security after 11 September.

The pressure to increase security has intensified since the arrest of a Tunisian-born Swedish citizen as he tried to board a Ryanair flight last week from Stockholm to Stansted. A gun was found in his hand baggage, and Swedish authorities claim he planned to hijack the aircraft and crash it into a US embassy in Europe. The incident has heightened nervousness in the run-up to the first anniversary of 11 September. On Friday, police in Birmingham arrested, but later released, a man flying from Pakistan to Canada in an unrelated security alert.

The airlines have also seen a sharp slump in ticket sales on 11 September. BA has cancelled 28 transatlantic flights on the day, Virgin Atlantic has dropped three flights and American Airlines has cancelled four services.

Due to start later this year, the "passenger profiling" trials are expected to affect Go flights from Stansted, and two Virgin Atlantic flights from Gatwick and Heathrow to Miami and New York.

The Home Office and police plan to use a new computerised passport reading system called Borderguard already being tested by immigration officers at Dover.

After their passport is swiped by check-in staff, each passenger's name will be checked against Home Office and police databases and an industry database called Matchmaker to see if their past behaviour, criminal records, background or travel history are suspicious.

People highlighted by the database are likely to be more thoroughly searched, screened by explosives detectors or full-body X-rays, or subjected to heavier questioning.

But the technique, which is used on every passenger by the Israeli airline El Al, has provoked fears from civil rights campaigners that Middle Eastern and Muslim travellers will be unfairly singled out. After 11 September, US pilots refused on several occasions to fly because a passenger had a Muslim name, including a Secret Service agent of Arab descent trying to fly on Christmas Day.

John Wadham, director of the human rights group Liberty, said very tight safeguards needed to be built into the system. "If they ensure they don't get false matches based on nationality or religion, and do concentrate on people who are genuinely likely to commit offences, then that's a positive step. But we're not convinced it's possible to do this," he said.

The proposal is being supported by BAA plc, which runs all three airports in the pilot project. One BAA source said: "Being British, we're talking about 'reasoned selection' rather than profiling, but it means screening out sections of the public for different security measures."

The source said the vast majority of travellers would tolerate such measures. BAA and the airlines have insisted that the extra checks will not delay flights or passengers.