Screening airline passengers of a certain ethnic or religious background to uncover those who pose a potential terrorist threat would risk alienating the Muslim community, prominent Muslims cautioned today.

The Times reported this morning that the Government is discussing with airport operators plans to introduce a screening system that allows security staff to select people who are behaving suspiciously, have an unusual travel pattern or are from certain ethnic or religious backgrounds.

It is understood that officials at the Department for Transport believe that this system would not only be more effective at identifying terrrorists, but would also greatly relieve queues.

However, Ali Dizaei, a chief superintendent in the Metropolitan Police and one of Britain's most senior Muslim officers, said that tougher checks based on ethnicity would create a new offence of "travelling whilst Asian".

"It become hugely problematic when it's based on ethnicity, religion and country of origin. I don't think there's a stereotypical image of a terrorist."

The profiling debate came to the fore as as passengers continued to endure long delays and cancellations across UK airports today despite the relaxation of restrictions on hand luggage imposed after last week's disclosure of an alleged plot to blow up flights en route to the US.

British Airways said tonight it has cancelled 35 flights out of Heathrow airport tomorrow morning and 11 domestic flights out of Gatwick

Today it had to cancel 41 short-haul and four long-haul flights from Heathrow as well as 11 domestic flights from Gatwick, while the budget airline Ryanair has cancelled eight at Stansted.

It has also emerged that a backlog of thousands of bags has been kept under 24-hour surveillance at Heathrow since Thursday when baggage handling systems were brought to a standstill by the weight of luggage being checked in. On Monday, BA staff told passengers that a mountain of up to 40,000 bags had built up, but a spokeswoman told Times Online today that the backlog had been cut to 5,000.

Despite the easing of restrictions, passengers are still strongly advised to allow extra time for their journey over the next few days with security staff still having to search 50 per cent of travellers.

The Muslim Council of Britain said that if such checks were narrowed to target members of the Muslim community the government could alienate Muslims whose co-operation is vital in combating threats of terror.

"The Government needs to think very, very carefully before it considers putting this measure into practice," Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain said.

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