AIRLINE passengers throughout the European Union face tougher security measures as part of a seven-point anti-terrorism package outlined after a meeting of interior ministers yesterday.

Two key measures are to be discussed by EU transport ministers next week, including extending the British hand baggage restrictions to all member states. The EU is also to look at introducing a requirement on airlines to provide advance information on passengers, as already happens on flights to the United States.

The concern over airline security was highlighted yesterday when a United Airlines flight to Washington from Heathrow was diverted after a passenger suffering from claustrophobia caused a security alert.

Two F16 fighter jets escorted Flight 0923 to Boston Logan airport after the pilot announced a mid-air emergency. The woman, 59, from Vermont in the US, became disruptive and agitated several hours into the eight-hour flight and argued with a flight steward. A crew-member provided handcuffs and two male passengers sat on either side of her until the Boeing 763 landed.

Police searched the woman and found that she was carrying a tub of handcream that should have been detected and handed over when she passed through two security checks at Heathrow. She was also carrying matches, but they are still allowed for passengers.

All luggage from the 182 passengers was unloaded on the Tarmac at Boston and then checked by dogs while the woman was arrested for interfering with a flight.

The failure of staff at Heathrow to discover the pot of cream is the latest security lapse at British airports since the rules were tightened last week. An investigation is already under way into how a 12-year-old boy managed to slip through security checks at Gatwick without a ticket or passport and reached an airliner due to leave for Portugal. In another incident at Gatwick a passenger smashed an alarmed glass door on one of the piers to go back to look for his missing wallet.

Franco Frattini, Vice-President of the European Commission, said after yesterday’s meeting of European ministers: “We need to improve the exchange of data of passengers travelling by plane, passenger name records, like the system we use for the US, Canada and Australia.”

He said that he would propose a similar system of advanced passenger travel data for all flights into, through and from one or more member states of the EU. The Home Office confirmed that the idea was to extend the system that operates on flights to the US to flights to and from the EU.

An action plan on counter-terrorism put forward during Britain’s presidency of the EU aimed to have the passenger information measures in place by next year, with work beginning on implementation in October this year.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, said after the meeting that he wanted greater uniformity in security measures taken at airports throughout the EU and said that discussions next week would look at extending the new measures in operation at British airports to those throughout the EU. He emphasised the importance of adopting measures across Europe so that “we don’t have a position where terrorists feel if it is difficult to get through security checks in London, they might be able to go to Paris or Frankfurt or Berlin”.

A Home Office spokeswoman said that extending British-style security measures to EU airports had been discussed during the meeting and would be on the agenda at the meeting of transport ministers next week, which would focus on aviation security.

Signor Frattini said that they were also looking at the “positive profiling” of passengers, carried out well in advance of their flights, based on biometric identifiers, such as iris scans or fingerprints. It would mean that immigration officials would be able to check that a person arriving in Britain with a passport containing a visa is the same person who applied for the visa.

He and Mr Reid emphasised, however, that there was no plan for profiling based on passengers’ ethnic origins.

• A cargo terminal at a port in Seattle was evacuated last night after explosives experts were called in to investigate a suspicious ship container that had arrived from Asia. Auth- orities erected a half-mile security cordon around the terminal, just south of the city centre, and moved non-essential staff out of the building.

  Port staff became alarmed when a gamma-ray screening of the container found that the contents did not match those listed on the ship’s manifest. Dogs also detected the possible presence of explosives, but found none.

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