BRUSSELS - THE European Union has unveiled a draft of new security measures to fight terrorism, including proposals to track air passengers travelling across Europe via an EU-wide airline passenger data recording system.

The proposal, announced by the EU's top justice official, is expected to require air passengers travelling into the EU to submit data, which could then be used by security agencies in pursuing terror suspects, said a BBC report on Tuesday.

Details of passengers flying into EU states, such as passport numbers and credit card information, would be stored and shared from individual government databases, said a report in Britain's Guardian newspaper yesterday.

According to the Guardian report, EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini said the EU required a 'better way to discourage and to detect terrorists' after last week's attempted bombings in London and Glasgow.

Following the attacks, Britain instituted higher visibility police patrols, increased the use of stop and search powers, and enforced tighter controls on access roads to airports, said a Financial Times report on Monday.

On Tuesday, London's Heathrow Airport was closed for five hours, with thousands of passengers left stranded, after police evacuated Terminal Four because of a suspect package. By the time the terminal reopened, more than 100 British Airways flights had been cancelled.

Now, Mr Frattini's new proposed anti-terror measures would offer 'all (EU) member states the possibility to establish' national data collection systems of passengers from across the world that fly through their airspace, and he encouraged EU members to 'share information with others when relevant'.

The data collection system would be similar to a transatlantic passenger data-sharing pact between the United States and the EU, completed last week, in which passenger details on all US-bound flights are sent before take-off to the Department for Homeland Security.

An Europe-wide system would mirror the EU-US deal, which has reduced the number of pieces of information currently transferred to the US authorities from 34 to 19. Certain sensitive data - defined as anything that could reveal a passenger's race or religion, political views or sexual preferences - would automatically be filtered by the US and deleted.

The new EU system could create a significant bank of passenger information and potentially affect millions of passengers from across the world, said the Guardian.

British airports alone process more than 200 million passengers a year, the report said.

The proposals, which will be put in place this year as a 'framework decision', can be rejected by any of the 27 EU member states.

But Mr Frattini said he wanted to make the system binding for all EU countries, adding that those which refused to participate 'could become the front door for dangerous people'.

The EU's new package of anti-terror measures also includes proposals to counter bio-terror attacks, plans to set up a Europe-wide 'rapid-alert' system on lost or stolen explosives and legislation to criminalise those who place bomb-making instructions on the Internet.

News of the proposed EU system comes on the heels of a US Department of Homeland Security announcement that it would fingerprint all foreign nationals leaving the country, including the four million annual British visitors, by the end of next year.

Meanwhile, the secretary-general of the international police force, Interpol, yesterday called on world governments to create a multinational force to plug 'gaping holes' in the fight against terrorism.

ASSOCIATED PRESS, BLOOMBERG, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE