Italy is gearing to test body scanners on flights to the United States from Rome and Milan in the wake of the failed Christmas Day bomb attack on an American flight coming into Detroit from Amsterdam.

The testing scheme was set to start Monday at Fiumicino and Malpensa but another week will probably be needed to make final preparations, Civil Aviation Authority ENAC chief Vito Riggio said. Riggio met with Fiumicino security officials and airport police to decide how to implement the scheme, which he said will take off in Rome "a few days" before the Milan airport.

"We've decided on the model and we're ready to go," he said, but a few last procedural wrinkles have to be ironed out. Installation of the 'millimetric electromagnetic wave' scanners is expected to begin at Fiumicino Tuesday. Personnel have to be trained to cancel scan records immediately after they're made while police and security staff need a few more tips on how to liaise if objects are found, Riggio said. Italy is among the first European countries to try out the new scanners, which are expected to come on line in the Spring. Riggio assured reporters the scanners will not emit harmful rays and will allow the body images to be ''immediately cancelled''. He also stressed the importance of the scanner not being operated by the same personnel who carry out security searches at passport points.than ENAC has earmarked more two million euros to buy some 15 scanners.

After the US, they will be used on other ''sensitive flights'' to Britain and Israel. Far from adding to passengers' search gripes, the scanners should cut them, Riggio added. ''At the moment people are searched one by one, between their legs also, and that takes a long time. It's obvious that with these devices the procedure will be streamlined''. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni has said a "balanced" approach would be needed on privacy, with body images fuzzy enough not to cause embarrassment but "able to detect any anomalies" such as concealed objects or containers. "The right to life is superior to that of privacy," Maroni stressed.

Italian Foreign Minister Frattini has also said scanners are ''the safest tool" against the risk of a terrorist attack on an airliner. Privacy is ''an absolute and inalienable right,'' he added, ''but if a person does not feel safe enough to fly because they are afraid that the person next to them may have an explosive device on their body, then their freedom has been denied''. Frattini also said the exchange of data on suspects between the EU and the US should be stepped up, building on his efforts to boost an EU database during his term as European security commissioner from 2004 to 2008.