Full body scanners to be introduced at Heathrow soon

Full-body security scanners will soon be introduced at London’s Heathrow Airport as soon as possible, according to the BAA.

The country’s busiest airport owner is increasing security after a failed attack on a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas day from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, 23, is in US custody and is accused of boarding the jet with explosives hidden under his clothes.

A spokesman for the BAA said that now the government had given the go-ahead, full body scanners will be introduced a soon as practical.

The spokesman went on to say that it is in their view that a combination of technology, intelligence and passenger profiling will help boost defence against the unpredictable and changing nature of the terrorist threat to airlines.

Meanwhile PM Gordon Brown has said the failed attack showed there was a new type of threat which needed to be addressed quickly.

He announced that full body scanners would be gradually more visible in airports across the UK.

He said checks for explosives would be done on hand luggage and transit passengers would also be checked.

The PM said it was impossible to know for certain that the new technology would work, saying that absolute proof of the new security measures of working at 100 per cent effectiveness cannot be attained.

Mr Brown went on to say that a new form of explosives have been found and cannot be identified by ordinary machines, and the first duty to the people of the UK was security.

The announcement came moments after Mr Brown announced that the UK and US would jointly fund a counter-terrorism unit in Yemen, where the alleged attacker was believed to have been radicalised.