Interpol chief: EU must step up security

The head of the international police agency Interpol urged European countries to check visitors' passports against its database of stolen documents. In an interview reported Friday in The Independent, Interpol Secretary-General Ronald Noble said only a few countries in the European Union take advantage of its database of 15 million suspicious passports. Once travelers are admitted to an EU country, the Schengen Agreement allows them to travel freely through most of Europe. "If we all say that we are going to trust one another to screen and control people coming through our borders then we should all have the same standard," Noble said. Noble pointed out one of the people involved in the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center in New York had entered the United States using a stolen Iraqi passport. "The lesson that should have been learnt ... is that people carrying stolen travel documents, if they are not stopped, can enter your country and mastermind a horrible attack," Noble said. While a European Commission official said the Schengen Agreement provides for a database of dubious passports, Noble said Interpol's is far more comprehensive because 131 countries contribute to it.