European Union member states are to debate whether the bloc should make airports introduce controversial full- body scanners following the failed Christmas attack on an airliner landing in Detroit, officials in Brussels said Monday, dpa reported.
The expected meeting of national experts would mark a new bid to bring in EU-wide rules on the scanners, which look through the traveller's clothes to produce an image of their body, after the European Parliament in the autumn rejected earlier legislation.
If member states agree on the need for EU-wide rules on the issue, they could task the bloc's executive, the European Commission, with proposing the necessary laws.
The commission sees the scanners as a "useful additional tool" in the fight against terrorism, but only if they meet health and privacy standards, a commission spokeswoman told journalists in Brussels.
The date of the meeting has not been fixed, but it should fall "in the days to come," she said.
At present, EU rules leave the decision on whether to bring in the scanners up to individual member states. A commission proposal to set EU-wide rules for their use failed in autumn when the parliament rejected it, largely because of privacy and data-protection concerns.
The issue jumped back up the agenda at Christmas, when a Nigerian passenger on a flight to Detroit tried to trigger a chemical bomb attached to his leg, to be stopped by his fellow-travellers.
Standard airport security systems had failed to spot the bomb.