The European Commission will today recommend fingerprinting and photographing every foreign traveller who enters or leaves the EU to create a security database aimed at curbing and tracking terrorist movements.

The proposals will then go before the European Parliament for approval. Officials, speaking off the record, said it would be "at least a year" before an operational network spanning the continent could be established.

The recommendations include collecting biometric data on the 13 million Americans who fly to Europe each year on business or holiday.

Initially, only major hub airports equipped with electronic fingerprint scanners would be involved, although the commission also recommends collecting facial and other biometric images.

While fingerprints can be altered, data such as the shape of the eye-sockets and individual body movements are almost impossible to fake.

The US and Japan already demand that all foreigners, including those from allied countries such as Britain, submit to fingerprinting and digital photographs before being allowed entry.

The suggestion is that a European database would be created to be compatible with the FBI's system and that information on known or suspected terrorists or major criminals would be shared.

America's Department of Homeland Security has already collected 85 million sets of fingerprints gathered from its own citizens or foreigners stopped at the border for criminal violations or from US citizens adopting foreign children. This is in addition to data collected internally by law enforcement agencies.

The European proposals differ from US practice in that the system would vet people on both entry and exit.

It addition to limiting the movement of extremists, it could also be used to identify those whose travel visas or work permits had expired.

Many EU governments resisted attempts to establish a trans-national screening database until the al Qaeda attacks in Madrid and London demonstrated the vulnerability of major cities to terrorist bombers who could enter Europe and then move freely across national frontiers.

Officials say the next step, if the database is given the go-ahead, will be a means of matching the US requirement for airlines to supply travellers' names, passport details, credit card numbers and itineraries in advance of allowing them to enter American airspace.

The US is also working on an electronic travel authorisation programme to force tourist passengers from countries exempt from current visa regulations - such as the UK - to submit checkable identification and holiday destination details before departure.

Meanwhile, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, has said the government is willing to consider a request from Washington to allow more armed sky marshals on transatlantic flights.

Britain already turns a blind eye to the presence of armed guards on some flights, but has never admitted it publicly. Other EU countries triggered a row with the White House two years ago when they refused to allow armed US marshals on their soil.