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Passengers flying to America from Europe are to face stricter security checks because of US fears that the Continent has become a hotbed of anti-American terror cells.

Michael Chertoff, the head of the US department of homeland security, told the BBC that Britons and other Europeans who fly to America may in future be forced to register online before travelling, to give US secret service agents more time to vet them.

The new measures stop short of scrapping the visa waiver programme that allows Britons to visit the US without obtaining a visa, but the heightened security is a sign of growing nervousness in the US about homegrown terrorism in Europe.

"We do want to elevate some of the security measures in the programme," said Mr Chertoff.

"One of the things we’ve become concerned about lately is the possibility of Europe becoming a platform for a threat against the United States."

Mr Chertoff's warning came as British security officials analysed a posting on an Islamist website, which claimed that "al-Qaeda in Britain" had been established and urged young Muslims to rise up against "infidels" like Gordon Brown. The posting - in Arabic - was put up on January 2 but taken down within a few hours.

Security officials are taking the threat seriously but say it may simply be another move in the propaganda war to win the hearts and minds of impressionable young Muslims, while frightening and alienating Westerners.

"You don’t ignore this sort of thing," Pauline Neville-Jones, the former head of the British joint intelligence committee, told the BBC’s Newsnight.

"It may not be a threat from an existing cell ... but it does represent a move in the propaganda game and the propaganda game is not something we should ignore. This is after all a struggle over ideology."

Mr Chertoff told BBC World News America that he was proposing an advance travel authorisation system which would require potential visitors to register online their intention to travel to America to allow authorities to clear them in advance.

"That’s for a couple of reasons. We have the visa waiver programme which allows most Europeans who come to be tourists to come without visas - that means the first time we encounter them is when they arrive in the United States and that creates a very small window of opportunity to check them out," he said.

"Secondly is that we have watched the rise of home-grown terrorism. We are obviously mindful of the Madrid bombings, the attempted bombings in Germany, and that suggests to us that the terrorists are increasingly looking to Europe as both a target and a platform for terrorist attacks.

"So a lot of what we are trying to do is find a way to better vet people coming in from Europe without impeding the flow of travel or trade which has been a very important part of our economy."

US nervousness about Europeans arriving on its soil by plane has increased after several plots targeting America apparently started in Europe. In one alleged plot, terrorists were supposedly plotting to carry liquid chemicals on board planes bound from Britain to America, which when combined made an explosive mix. Several suspects are awaiting trial in Britain.

Months after the 9/11 terror attacks, the British terrorist Richard Reid attempted to detonate explosives in his shoe while on a transatlantic jet. Reid is in prison in the US, and a second attempted shoebomber, who gave up before carrying out his planned attack, is in prison in Britain.

Mr Chertoff said that al-Qaeda was clearly active around the world, although America itself now appeared gripped by "a certain sense of complacency" which needed to be dispelled.

"When I lift my eyes and look around the world and I look at what happens in Britain and Germany and Spain and Bali and Pakistan, I don’t see terrorism going away, I see an al Qaeda that’s emboldened, he said.

"I don’t see any diminishment of the threat and my concern is that we not relax and let the enemy get ahead of us."

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