Brussels, 20/03/2003 (Agence Europe) - Spain has submitted a proposal to its European partners to establish within the European Union a similar system to that in place in the United States, giving authorities access to airline databases. "By making sure that carriers gather certain information on passengers and travel documents on embarkation, and send them directly to the authorities responsible for border control in the destination Member States, the time lapse could be used to conduct a detailed examination of this information (…) This measure would help to improve the efficiency of external border control", explained Spain in a note preceding the proposal. According to Spain, this monitoring would also allow better information on travel paths used for illegal immigration. A Spanish source insisted that it was not a question of storing these data, but of an upstream improvement of air transport security, the fight against terrorism and clandestine immigration. The proposal has not yet been discussed in working groups.