A reporter carried a knife onto a holiday flight to East Midlands Airport and arrived at his destination unchallenged.

The Derby Evening Telegraph revealed the potential for security breaches two years on from the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The newspaper showed how weapons could be smuggled on board flights to the UK.

Reporter Daniel Bentley carried a penknife, corkscrew and razors. He was joined by photographer Jane Barlow with other prohibited items including scissors and nail-cutters.

The men responsible for the September 11 hijacks in 2001 were armed with just box-cutters and razors.

Daniel bundled the razor blades, penknife and corkscrew into a towel and walked aboard the Easyjet flight without attracting any interest from security staff. None of the banned items were picked up from his hand luggage - although he was asked to put his mobile phone through the Faro check-in scanners separately.

He said: "Flying out from EMA in July on my real summer holiday, I had been forced to take off my trainers when I passed through the security check.

"I wasn't carrying anything illegal on that occasion but airport security staff made absolutely sure where there was obviously some doubt (it turned out the eyelets in my trainers were made from metal).

"But in Faro - from where hundreds of British holidaymakers fly into the East Midlands every day - it was an altogether different story."

The head of operations at faro airport has asked for a meeting with the chief of police after hearing of the Evening Telegraph investigation.

And North West Leicestershire MP David Taylor, whose constituency covers the airport, has pledged to bring the findings to the attention of aviation minister Tony McNulty.

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