Woman in Paris Removed From Flight

A woman was taken off a flight from Paris Tuesday just before it took off for Cincinnati because of wires poking out of her leather motorcycle jacket, but she was later determined not to be a threat, security officials said.

Police bomb disposal experts were called in to check the woman’s jacket, French police officials said. The garment was designed to heat up to keep the wearer warm.

Several people aboard Delta Flight 43 were questioned in Paris and about 10 Middle Eastern men were questioned upon arrival in Cincinnati.

As a precaution, the jet was kept half a mile from the terminal at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport after it landed. Passengers and baggage were rescreened.

The U.S. is under orange alert, the second-highest of five terrorism threat levels. The government has started photographing and fingerprinting foreigners arriving at U.S. airports, and some international flights have been canceled or delayed because of terrorism fears.

One of the factors in those delays was a male passenger who did not show up for Air France Flight 68 to Los Angeles on Dec. 24, ABC News reported on Tuesday, citing unidentified U.S. and French officials.

French officials said the man, suspected of having links to Al Qaeda, was feared to have a small bomb whose components might get past airport security, ABC said.

The air security measures are raising some protests.

Mexico’s human rights ombudsman said Tuesday that it has lodged an official complaint with several government ministries demanding to know the legal basis for the presence of U.S. security agents at Mexico City’s airport.

The watchdog demanded the government respect the law and ensure that passengers are not searched by foreigners on home soil.

Witnesses say that U.S. Transportation Security Administration agents are supervising extensive security checks of passengers and luggage.

In Brazil, the city of Rio de Janeiro appealed a court order requiring U.S. tourists to be fingerprinted and photographed in retaliation for the U.S. checks.

Rio’s special secretary for tourism Rubem Medina said that the identification system could halve the number of U.S. tourists. Some of those tourists arriving this week were kept waiting as long as eight hours, causing many to miss connecting flights or a day of sightseeing. Rio’s system is not the quick electronic scan used in the United States.

The U.S. call for armed marshals to be used on flights to the United States also is drawing some complaints.

British pilots won assurances from their government Tuesday that they will be told when armed sky marshals are aboard their flights, but they also demanded to know where the guard is seated and to be able to maintain regular contact.

Package tour operator Thomas Cook barred the armed guards from its planes, joining commercial airlines based in Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Portugal.

Meanwhile, a British Airways flight from London to Washington, which was canceled twice last week because of security fears, was delayed Tuesday for the fourth consecutive day because of U.S.-requested security checks.