WASHINGTON -- A technology specialist has recommended that passengers should be banned from taking any electronic equipment aboard aircraft because of the risk of wilful interference with control systems.

Chet Uber said in*** Scientist**** magazine that any airliner could be brought down by terrorists using modified versions of almost any personal electronic equipment.

In the article, Duncan Graham-Rowe quotes Uber as saying that passengers should be barred from carrying any electronic gadgets on to aircraft until technology allows planes to detect them.

Uber, a technology specialist at security posture in Omaha, Nebraska, says devices such as radios, tape recorders, CD players, and laptop computers could be easily adapted to cause potentially catastrophic interference with an aircraft's control systems.

Any intending terrorist with a basic knowledge of electronics could modify a device to create an electromagnetic weapon, he said.

The adaptations can be done invisibly, he said.

Airport security checks would not pick up the modifications, DPA reported.

It has been known for some time that cellphones and laptops can cause low-level interference, but no airline monitors these radio emissions during flight. Instead, they rely on passengers turning off devices for critical periods such as take-off and landing.

Uber warned a conference in Washington D.C. that the possibility of people intentionally interfering with an aircraft's instruments had to be taken seriously.

The situation now is that if an aircraft begins to malfunction, pilots have no monitoring system to tell them whether that problem is due to interference or a malfunction. This exposes aircraft to attack from a device operated by a passenger.

In 1996, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration funded a feasibility study by Megawave Corporation into ways of detecting interfering signals inside aircraft cabins. But the project was dropped.