PROPOSALS to ban passengers carrying fluids on commerical aircraft will be discussed by aviation security chiefs in an emergency meeting today, The Times has learnt.

Douglas Alexander, the Transport Secretary, is to chair a meeting of the National Aviation Security Committee that will consider long-term restrictions on bringing drinks and other fluids aboard.

If the move is backed at the meeting — which involves intelligence officers; Transec, the department’s transport security advisory body, and senior officials from airline and airport companies — it will be introduced for flights leaving the UK. If approved it will be put before international airline authorities.

A senior source at the Department for Transport said that information gathered before the terror alert was likely to change the face of aviation security. “I don’t think we will ever go back to the way we were before,” the source told The Times.

Security experts agreed that the ban on hand luggage from many flights around the world marked the start of a new phase in airline safety.

The ban, which will be enforced pending a decision from the committee, permits vital items such as travel documents, wallets, baby food and nappies on board if carried in a transparent plastic bag.

However, aviation security specialists said that a more comprehensive overhaul needed to be introduced as standard.

The new technology includes scanners that detect weapons and explosives in luggage. The machinery, which has been on trial at Heathrow, can detect chemical compounds from the slightest fume or picogram of material, which are then compared against a database of substances. Known as “sniffer” or “puffer” machines, they are used at some airports in the US, but remain a rarity around the rest of the world.

Yesterday’s events could also speed the introduction of full-body X-rays, despite concerns about human rights. The machinery provides an image of the body and can identify concealed items.

The Archway walk-through metal detector — still common in airports — will be consigned to history, although upgrading the system will be expensive. Prototypes of the portal explosive scanner retail at about $100,000 (£53,000), compared with $5,000 for the Archway.

Experts said that the new security procedures would be less irksome for passengers. One advance will be a sensor that screens groups of people simultaneously, as they move through an airport or wait in boarding lounges. Like the sniffer technology, the scanner would to identify traces of explosives and narcotics.

The British Aviation Authority (BAA) is understood to spend about £165 million a year on security at its seven UK airports, Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Southampton.

This is just more than a tenth of what BAA invested last year to build capacity and improve facilities. Of that £1.5 billion, almost two thirds was spent on Heathrow Terminal 5, which opens in March 2008.

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