Berlin – A call by an airline industry leader for Germany to focus security checks on high-risk passengers, as Israel does, was rejected Wednesday by senior officials in Berlin.

Christoph Blume, soon to take over as president of the German Airports Association, or ADV, had called for Germany to categorize passengers by ethnic origin, sex, age and marital status, so that people unlikely to be terrorists are not so closely checked.

He said the procedure, known as profiling, would make more sense than more elaborate baggage searches.

But Germany’s Interior Ministry showed no enthusiasm.

Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger told a newspaper, the Frankfurter Rundschau, she believed passengers would be ‘stigmatized’ if they were routinely subjected to extra searches because of their ethnic origin or religion.

Barig, an association of 100 airlines operating in Germany, supported Blume.

‘It’s not things that pose threats but potential attackers,’ said Barig secretary Martin Gaebges. ‘Profiling spots the threats.’

A national Islamic group, the Central Council of Muslims, attacked the proposal. Its chairman, Yakup Tufan, told a newspaper, the Rheinische Post, it risked ‘stigmatizing and discriminating against entire social groups.’