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THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport will begin using full-body scanners within three weeks to scan people traveling to the United States after consultations with U.S. authorities, the Dutch interior minister said on Wednesday.

U.S.

The minister said ordinary procedures were followed properly in the Christmas Day handling of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

"We will make these machines, about 15 in total, available for flights to the United States within three weeks time," Guusje ter Horst told a news conference in The Hague.

Ter Horst said normal metal detectors could not detect explosives, and the use of the full-body scanners would have helped prevent Abdulmuttalab from taking explosives onto the aircraft.

She also warned there was no 100 percent guarantee that the new detectors would have enabled airport security to catch him.

Full-body scanners, unlike the standard archway metal detectors currently used in airports around the world, use radio waves to generate a picture of the body that can see anomalies through clothing.

The investigation is continuing into whether Abdulmutallab had help in Amsterdam, the interior ministry said in a report on the investigation it released on Wednesday.

It found no evidence he had been to Amsterdam before the flight to Detroit, as some had speculated.

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Regular Photo SizeFull Body ScannersBillerica company builds full body…

Joe Reiss is a Vice President at American Science and …

Body scanners coming to Logan…

The US Transportation Security Administration is promising to …

Billerica company builds full body scan x-ray machines
Updated: Tuesday, 29 Dec 2009, 11:14 PM EST
Published : Tuesday, 29 Dec 2009, 6:40 PM EST


Bob
Ward
Joe Reiss is a Vice President at American Science and Engineering , a company based in Billerica that has developed the smart check system.

It uses a low level x-ray to deliver a full body scan. Items missed by metal detectors can be picked up by this machine.

In a test we hide a small packet that resembled the amount of explosives found on the Nigerian man who tried to blow up a northwest plane in Detroit on Christmas day.

This full body scanner instantly picked up the packet.

This type of explosive is not usually detectable by any other scanning technology that is used by airports today.

The attempted Christmas day terrorist attack in Detroit sent shockwaves among holiday travelers but that attack had been anticipated by security experts for years.

The technology behind these full body scanners is not new but it is slowly getting introduced to airports across the USA.

150, including one for Logan, are due in the new year.

By any measure, that is a slow roll out.

Massachusetts Congressman Stephen Lynch would like to see full body scanners widely used overseas as well.

“This would be more impactful if we had them in place in these foreign airports where the destination is the united states.” said lynch

American Science and Engineering machines are currently being used by the military and at border crossings.

The company believes this is the technology needed to fight terrorists who continue to target our airlines.

Privacy concerns have helped thwart large-scale use of these high-tech scanners.

Full-body scanners show great detail, including body contours, but critics say they amount to a virtual strip-search.