AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Passenger check-in security is under intense scrutiny after the foiled attempt to blow up a plane en route from Amsterdam to Detroit, Dutch media report.
The failed bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, went through security checks at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport when he transferred onto Northwest Airlines flight 253, an Airbus A330. A report by Radio Netherlands Worldwide said that Dutch Anti-Terrorism Coordinator Erik Akerboom admitted the airport's security checks are not watertight.
It is not clear whether all transfer passengers are checked by sniffer dogs, the radio report said.
In May 2007 Schiphol became one of the first international airports to introduce the latest body-scanning technology at security checkpoints. Security Scan is a machine that produces an image of body contours using millimeter wave-reflection technology. The image tells security staff whether a passenger is carrying prohibited items on his or her body. Security Scan is also unlike the more familiar Body Scan in which X-rays pass through the body to trace swallowed items.
Dutch members of Parliament are demanding an account of the situation at Schiphol, and the far-right Freedom Party is calling for an emergency debate on the issue.
U.S. authorities have charged Abdulmutallab with bringing explosives on board and attempting to blow up an aircraft. Both charges carry sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
Dutch media are also reporting fulsome praise by readers for Jasper Schuringa, the passenger whose quick thinking averted a major air disaster. He was first to notice something suspicious and made moves to overpower the Nigerian and wrest a burning device from the would-be bomber. Schuringa was later helped by other passengers and flight crew to put handcuffs on the man.
Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Wouter Bos reportedly telephoned Schuringa to thank him for his part in affair.
In the United Kingdom police are searching several London properties linked to the Nigerian, who was an engineering student at University College London between 2005 and 2008, the BBC reports. According to government sources, Abdulmutallab, whose father is a prominent Nigerian banker, was denied a new visa this summer by the U.K. Border Agency after attempting to apply for a course at a bogus college.
His father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, said he knew that his son had left London where he was a student to travel, but he did not know where he was going. "I believe he might have been to Yemen, but we are investigating to determine that," a BBC report quoted him as saying. The former minister and chairman of First Bank in Nigeria has been meeting with Nigerian security officials in the capital Abuja.
Police in London have cordoned off a basement apartment and have been conducting searches. Apartments in the area have been sold for upwards of $3 million, the BBC said.
At British airports travelers are undergoing pat-down searches before boarding and being restricted to one item of hand luggage. Several flights bound for the United States from London's main airports, Heathrow and Gatwick, were delayed up to three hours to allow for extra security checks.
Despite the delays, few passengers were complaining, the BBC reported.
