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A little more than a year ago, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s botched attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound transatlantic flight on Christmas Day instantly reminded us that despite a decade of concentrated counterterrorism efforts, the desire of Islamist, jihadi terrorists to utilize European and American aircraft to convey their message through “propaganda by the deed” and terrorize our societies is alive and resilient. Yet, despite this chilling reminder, cooperation between European Union member states and the U.S. has been marginally lacking at best and fatally negligent at worst.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has stated: “False travel documents are a principal means for terrorists and other criminals to ply their trade.” As identity-based passenger screening programs have made it increasingly difficult for terrorists to board flights using their own identities, known aliases, or even passports from their native countries, those wishing us harm have needed to become increasingly adaptive and capable of finding the path of least resistance. In the world of international travel, this path means utilization of passports issued by those countries that participate in the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP). In an effort to promote international business and commerce, the VWP allows individuals possessing passports from participant states to travel to and from the U.S. without the scrutiny of a formal visa acquirement process. European countries constitute over 83 percent (30 out of 36) of VWP participant states.

The earnest efforts of terrorists to utilize European passports was most recently evidenced this past December when The New York Times reported that 10 individuals were arrested in Thailand for their activities as alleged members of a counterfeit Al-Qaeda passport operation linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba that specialized in doctoring stolen European passports. Spanish authorities stated that they believed that the ring was at least six years old because of indications that the perpetrators of the 2004 Madrid bombings used doctored passports provided by the operation.

However, it is easy to think that such activities do not pose the threat insinuated when considering all of the efforts taken by the transatlantic community to transition from non-electronic to biometric passports. Unfortunately, this line of thinking blinds us to the vulnerabilities that still persist in biometric programs and passport security. It has been proven that the e-passports used by VWP countries since 2007 are easily altered and passed off as authentic. For example, the British newspaper The Times reported shortly after the U.K. released a new version of its e-passports in August 2008 that two of the new documents were successfully manipulated by a computer researcher in a manner of minutes. “In the tests, a computer researcher cloned the chips on two British passports and implanted digital images of Osama bin Laden and a suicide bomber. The altered chips were then passed as genuine by passport reader software used by the UN agency that sets standards for e-passports.”

While some countries seeking to reduce this vulnerability have become participants in the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) Public Key Directory (PKD), which allows authorities to determine the validity of e-passport chips, only 16 countries had participated in the PKD program as of December 2009.

Moreover, bureaucratic vulnerabilities in securing blank passports in European countries have also come to light in recent years. In July 2008, the UK Foreign Office admitted to a serious security breach when unarmed assailants were able to easily procure 3,000 blank passports from a standard delivery van. In a different instance in 2004, the Department of Homeland Security determined during an assessment of Germany’s participation in the VWP that “several thousand blank German temporary passports [which are valid for a full year] had been lost or stolen, and that Germany had not reported some of this information to the United States.”

Apart from the threat of stolen blank passports, there is also the threat posed by lost or stolen passports possessed by US and EU citizens. However, the Migration Policy Institute writes that because of legal and privacy issues, “US and EU officials have struggled to find a mutually beneficial framework for sharing information.” While utilization of INTERPOL’s Stolen Lost Travel Document (SLTD) database could greatly mitigate this threat, participation in the program by European member states has often been sporadic. Moreover, in order to insure the integrity of its data, Interpol does not allow this data to be downloaded into national database systems that that are routinely utilized to screen airline passengers.

Recognizing the legitimate concerns of those in the transatlantic community regarding the legal and privacy issues inherent in sharing information about its citizens, it is also necessary that we comprehend the nature of the threat that will continue to haunt us for years to come. As a result, we must pave the way with new and innovative solutions to these problems in a manner that does not jeopardize our values. Without such efforts, the terrorists will become increasingly adaptive, zeroing in on the unguarded path of least resistance to apply their trade, while we in the transatlantic community make their jobs easier and our targets more vulnerable.

Dara H. Stofenberg is enrolled in the Master of International Affairs program at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

This article was submitted for the atlantic-community.org's competition: "Empowering Women in International Relations." It coincides with the 10th Anniversary of UN resolution 1325 calling for an increased influence of women in all aspects of peace and security. The contest is sponsored by the U.S. Mission to NATO and the NATO Public Diplomacy Division.

You can read more submissions from the competition here.