On Christmas day Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate an improvised explosive device on North West Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. Following this failed attempt here was an audible sigh of relief, followed by a clamour for greater security to prevent future attempts.

I would support the continual review of physical security at airports and the likely move towards body scanners which is, in my opinion, a positive step. However I feel that by concentrating on physical security we are missing the benefits a joined up Intelligence System could provide.

Currently there are three distinct areas of airport security. Most countries, the UK amongst them, have invested heavily in terrorist intelligence gathering since the events of 9/11. In most countries I have visited over the last couple of years, co-operation between various arms of the state has improved markedly in sharing intelligence.

Airport security often works independently and varies from one location to the next, although security at all airports has become increasingly tight over recent years. It still remains based on providing a consistent physical security (guided in part by state driven ‘strategic intelligence’)..

Airlines are the most passive of the three arms of security, yet they handle passengers and baggage, not only through the airports but in the most vulnerable location of all, in national and international air space.

The question I pose is how joined up are the various aspects of airline security? I do not doubt that there is a healthy relationship between most of the relevant organisations or even that they meet and discuss relevant issues, in fact I am sure the events of Christmas day generated a flurry of activity in this respect. However the fact that there is no joined up system of intelligence sharing means this type of incident will continue to happen.

There are of course a number of reasons why intelligence sharing in its purist form, does not currently exist. Airlines are multinational companies from all over the globe, and in competition with each other. Many airports are privately run and we still have to overcome the thorny issue of sharing intelligence between states.

However if we take Abdulmutallab as a case study, we know that:

His father had raised concerns with US Diplomats and Nigerian security services that he had become radicalised and may be a security risk.

He had travelled to the Yemen, a high risk area for muslin fundamentalists.

He had travelled from his home in Nigeria to the US via Holland.

We can see that any one of these issues could have been used to proactively target Abdulmutallab as a passenger.

Let me be clear what I mean here, I am suggesting that by overcoming the barriers to intelligence sharing, having a structured intelligence system and an intelligence led security policy, this would have led to a far stricter screening of Abdulmutallab and discovery of the improvised explosive device at the airport before he boarded the plane.

Whilst hindsight is 20/20 vision we must continue to learn lessons. Joe Lieberman, Chairman of the Senate’s homeland security committee, said he believed this incident amounted to a security failure. However, I believe it highlighted a lack of structure rather an individual failing.

We should take the events of Christmas day as a warning to improve our intelligence structure and utilise the proactive targeting of passengers as a way of improving airline security