Blunkett urges leading nations to adopt computerised passports

David Blunkett will urge the world's most powerful nations to speed up plans for hi-tech frontier checks in the battle against global terrorism at a meeting in Paris today.

Britain hopes to start issuing passports storing information about the holder on computer chips within two years. It hopes to introduce passport cards with biometric information, such as an iris scan or fingerprints, by the year 2006.

However, the Home Secretary is concerned that some other major countries are lagging behind in developing the new technology.

About 3,000 passports go missing in Britain every year. Most are thought to be stolen by criminals gangs behind immigration rackets, but ministers acknowledge that they could be ending up in terrorists' hands.

Mr Blunkett will tell a meeting in Paris of the G8 group of industrialised countries that they should work together to produce sophisticated travel documents that can be recognised at each other's borders.

He will argue that the massive growth in travel – 90 million foreign nationals passed through the UK last year on holiday or business – increased the need for the work.

Mr Blunkett will also argue that the checks can only be made truly effective if there are common standards in north America, western Europe, Japan and Russia.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "We're not looking to set up a 'fortress Britain', but we do need to make sure we are using the latest technology.

"This work is going on in the UK and we have taken a number of steps in that direction. We want to remain at the forefront of this work.

"We will be pressing the other ministers in Paris to pool their knowledge and resources so we're working to the same standards and so our technology is compatible."

The passports, to be launched in 2005, would carry facial recognition data, which records details of the distance between points on the face, and a digital copy of the bearer's signature. The aim is to make it much harder to alter the document for another person.

The Government has begun a pilot scheme on the use of iris recognition, which is considered to be more reliable than fingerprinting.

It involved checking a group of frequent travellers at Heathrow airport against a database that stored details of their irises.

Home Office sources said the trials so far have been encouraging. They also have a beneficial side-effect of freeing immigration staff to make checks on other, higher-risk groups of travellers.

The feasibility of developing biometric technology – which could also be used on a national identity card – has already been discussed by Mr Blunkett and Tom Ridge, the head of the US Department of Homeland Security.