A search officer, working his way through Abu Hamza’s mosque in Finsbury Park, North London, in January 2003, pushed up a polystyrene ceiling tile and dislodged a cache of documents.

Forged French and Belgian identity cards, driving licences, credit cards and chequebooks fell on his head. So too did five blank Portuguese passports.

False identity papers, especially passports, are essential to the successful functioning of international terrorism. They enable wanted men to stay on the run for years and allow terrorists to evade security watchlists and attend training camps, conduct reconaissance or plan attacks.

Kamel Bourgass, the Algerian who murdered a police officer in Manchester, had gone there to collect a false passport. He is now serving a life sentence in prison, although no one is quite sure of his true identity.

A leading al-Qaeda operative, recently released from jail and identifiable only as U, was first arrested in 2001 as he tried to flee Britain in possession of a false Saudi Arabian passport.

Dhiren Barot, who rose higher in the al-Qaeda hierarchy than any other Briton, crisscrossed the globe on his missions using false passports and identities.

The ease with which terrorists could travel – and the fact that several of the 9/11 hijackers used false documents to enter the United States – was the driving force behind the development of biometric passport technology.

Authorities around the world were also alert to the use of fake identities in organised crime, from immigration rackets to international fraud. The US led the way with e-passports and insisted that the rest of the world follow. Britain, keenly aware of the close political and business relationships it enjoys with America, has been enthusiastic. The technology is also to be used in the Government’s controversial (and increasingly expensive) ID card scheme.

If, however, the secrets of cloning and altering the microchips that are supposed to be the security cornerstone of e-passports have been cracked, there is a danger that the billions of pounds invested in the technology will be wasted.

That can be avoided if the 45 countries using e-passports sign up to a comprehensive sharing system of international key codes that will mark the documents as genuine. As we stand, only five countries use the full system and Britain is not one of them.

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