we are cooperating with interpol malaysia, interpol malaysia, interpol iran and all the other countries involved in this investigation. there has been great, great speculation ever since was revealed that the two passport holders were carrying passports reported lost or stolen. great speculation to whether it was or was not a terrorist attack. suddenly people seem to be concerned for the first time, whether it's good or bad, to allow people to travel the world using stolen passports. people begin to understand how dangerous it is to have people traveling the world using stolen passports. already in the last 24 hours you say the story changing as the belief becomes more certain that these two individuals were probably not terrorists. the interest seems to be dying down because they might just be people who are being smuggled or trafficked. the fear and concern we should all have is more than a billion times each year people across borders against the database, from experience from february 26th, 1993 when the first world trade center bombing occurred, we know the terrorist and mastermind

database. >> the head of interpol with me.k gardner, we have the names of these two men. an appeal really for the public to stay focused and to help the investigation. >> one is that he is pretty much putting the nail in the coffin of the suspicion over terrorism with this. it's not completely gone, but, you know, all the flurry of interest over these two passengers why did they fly there, we now know the reason. their own passports didn't flag up any interests. they were genuine. once there they used stolen passports, austria and i tally passports, seeking economic asylum in probably germany and denmark. so that explains what they were doing. he used the press conference, though, to say, look, this is a wakeup call to the rest of the world about people traveling around the world. four out of ten passengers, he said, are using stolen or lost documents. this is an incredible security loophole. he pointed out that the first world trade center bombing in 1993, the bomber got into the united states using a stolen passport. the so-

search for missing malaysia airlines flight three seventy continues the international police agency interpol said that to non eu passport holders used to limit the eu passports to board flights. in the polls still in my last travel documents database helps countries secure their borders and protect people from terrorists and pages criminals. by the passports were listed on the interpol database but as an airline safety of ipoh because very few countries use the database. last year passengers are able to board planes over a billion times without having their passports korean against interpol the state of race that was the end of a book on the fourth winter cold ones that stalin on fake passports are still a security threat to national authorities took without the threat seriously. the old house with early it would perhaps be a positive outcome of a modest rebound. off to the mine eleven tried to think what we can bring on board a plane is strictly regulated. the highly vulnerable as the security

and this is something interpol, back when i was on the executive committee of interpol from 2006 to 2009, this came up every year. it's been pushed every single year. but the majority of countries still do not make that inquiry and do that check. >> does the united states make that inquiry? >> well, my understanding is that customs of border protection does do inquiries on, you know, on the flight list of people that are going to be outbound from the united states. including all the queries of the various u.s. watch lists and terror screening lists, as well. but many of the countries are not doing that. and, in fact, those numbers are huge. it's 1 billion with a b passengers annually board aircraft on international flights where the documents have not been checked through the database. >> tom fuentes, thanks very much. we're going to continue to monitor this mystery. a lot more coming up. just ahead, this search intensifying for flight 370. everybody has a theory about what happened. which are getting the most attention. >>> and the russias say they haven't invaded ukraine but our team i

host: what is interpol? poll: enter poll -- enter thenter poll is international police organization. it is an organization that was founded in the early part of the 20th century. it became active after world war ii. it is not a police force per se. it is an organization to foster international cooperation among national police forces. it serves a number of functions in terms of intelligence, data gathering that, training, cooperation. .t is an international group 190 nations belong to it. the secondt is largest international membership next to the united nations. of lost these databases travel documents that the information regarding to passports eventually came to light. it came to light after the incident. host: who controls the database? guest: the database is reported .y interpol they've got 14 different databases. it includes not only lost and stolen travel documents, it includes a firearms, sexual exploitation records, a broad range of information the law enforcement community wants. it is controlled b

lo interpol. >> mil millones de personas montan en a un aviÓn todos los aÑos sin chequear el pasaportesto es abrir una caja de pandora en medio de una investigaciÓn. >> la base de interpol contiene 40 millones de pasaporte que estÁn a disposiciÓn de la aerolÍnea, pero solo 3 paises utilizan este listado emiratos Árabes,, reino unido y estados unidos. >> se sospechaba que otros 3 pasajeros podrÍan haber utilizado documentos robados pero no. >> procedente de beijing llegaron familiares que seguirÁn su espera. >> hoy por cierto familiares informaron que llamaron a los telÉfonos celulares los familiares y escuchan el tono que indica que la llamada estÁ

but interpol says fewer than 20 of its 190 member countries bother to do that kind of database check. as a result, air travelers boarded 1 billion times last year, with no check against interpol's list of stolen documents. an example officials say, samantha lewthwaite known as the white widow of a london suicide bomber and wanted for possessing explosives traveled abroad with fraudulent documents. experts say it's a matter of cost, less concern about terror, and sometimes even reluctance to interfere with a market to interfere with phony documents. >> frankly, there are some countries that don't want this because it could disturb an element of their underground economy. >> reporter: checking the database stops travelers with phony documents from entering the u.s. several hundred times a year, though they won't give specifics. interpol says so many countries are lax, that as many as 40% of passengers on international flights could be using documents that are lost or stolen. pete williams, nbc news, washington. >>> out west tonight, we're just seeing the start of some serious problems f

interpol said it is unlikely. disappearance of the malaysian plane was a terrorist act. the secretary general said the two men who used stolen passports had earlier used iranian passports and he appeals for help. spain marks 10 years since the devastating suicide attacks on madrid trains left almost 200 people dead. >> also coming up in the next hour, we are going to be hearing from save the children about the video campaign, a campaign that has gone viral. dayhows the second of each of the life of a young girl showing what it would be like for british children if civil war had happened in the u.k. as it has in syria. to mark thereleased third year of the anniversary of the uprising against bashar al-assad. our top story this hour -- ukraine's ousted leader viktor yanukovych says he remains the country's legitimate president and the commander in chief of the armed forces. cut -- press conference was held in russia earlier this morning. viktor yanukovych called on washington not to give financial currentkraine's leaders, accusing them of being bandits. here is what he had

host: what is interpol?nter poll -- enter thenter poll is international police organization. it is an organization that was founded in the early part of the 20th century. it became active after world war ii. it is not a police force per se. it is an organization to foster international cooperation among national police forces. it serves a number of functions in terms of intelligence, data gathering that, training, cooperation. .t is an international group 190 nations belong to it. the secondt is largest international membership next to the united nations. of lost these databases travel documents that the information regarding to passports eventually came to light. it came to light after the incident. host: who controls the database? guest: the database is reported .y interpol they've got 14 different databases. it includes not only lost and stolen travel documents, it includes a firearms, sexual exploitation records, a broad range of information the law enforcement community wants. it is controlled by interp

i think interpol is focusing on the passport issue.e passport iss issue -- it's so large, the fake passports and fake driver's license and all that. and i think they're wise to focus on that and get that problem solved. but it does not look related to this. there have been other planes that have crashed with fake passports on it and it wasn't terror. >> is there any difference? and this may sound foolish. but it it is a curious issue. is there any difference between terror as it relates to incidents in other countries, terror between other countries that just doesn't involve america, and perhaps the i will lackerity with which the terrorists will claim responsibility or the agencies will respond? is there a difference between targeting americans or targeting others in solving these problems? >> yes, i think there is. because sometimes we -- use descriptions like it's located in a particular area or it's between ethnic groups, et cetera. and, of course, in the united states of america, our alarm bells are always al qaeda. and the plots

coming home on the planes circling the interpol base to base has grown from it. his eyes and passports to more than forty million passports been reported stolen. a lot of sports out there that shouldn't be used is about worrying. there is a constable and the official letter of the traveling around the globe the scene the gospels we know there are in excess of fourteen million and passports in trouble i tell the book is reported to us. and that shouldn't be news to us the trouble in any means. and as consequence of the fourteen we know that it's a time. it's the responsibility of the bullet and officials who were forced to choose the model far as he's trying to use up they tend to become the first documents to take another homeschooling finally we spoke about the best way to eliminate the threat from criminals and terrorists using stolen and lost travel documents biometrics could be a solution without the moment very few countries can afford such a control system we've seen that in the passport technologies of bolting to utilize biometrics as well. and. issues lik

avoid planes without having their passports screened against interpol as data base.tounding 40 million record of stolen documents. >> the 190 members that belong to interpol are not charge a fee for accessing any of the databases. if the country has sufficient resources and technical capability to wire into interpol's virtual private network that is running 24 hours a day, then they certainly would be able to access that database and check. it is just up to the will of the country to set it up and do it. interpol secretary, general, robl noble sa ronald noble says, now, we have a real case where they are asking whether they are terrorists. they are taking care to make sure persons possessing stolen passports are not boarding international flights. >> people use stolen passports for a variety of reasons, such as drug smuggling, human trafficking. there is no credible link to terrorism though it hasn't been ruled out. 250 million times a year. out of 800 million searches a year worldwide in interpol's data base, there are 60,000 hits of people using lost or stolen pass

they'll work with interpol and they'll work with the other countries where they have victims. >> mary, what do you make of the idea that officials are now moving away from the terrorism idea? >> well, i think statistically, you look at it, for example, in 80% of the cases, our natural transportation safety board, finds some form of pilot error. three large causes are mechanical, including maintenance and manuals, pilot error and weather. we don't have a weather component that we know of. statistically speaking the odds are it will be a mechanical with pilot error. terrorism actually ranks far less in the number of accidents. and because it is a boeing, boeing will be there in full force. there's 1,000 reasons for them to participate, and it's called 777. >> a lot being made of the fact that the pilots didn't communicate. but again, i go back to that air france flight, the pilots didn't communicate then either even though they were wrestling with the aircraft that we know now it took two years to figure out. people shouldn't assume just because the pilots aren't communicating, that doe

coming home on the planes going the interpol base to base has grown from it. his eyes and passports to more than fourteen million passports been reported stolen. a lot of sports out there that shouldn't be used is about worrying. there is a constable and the official letter of the traveling around the globe the scene the gospels we know there are in excess of fourteen million and passports it up like summer bookings reported to us. and that shouldn't be used for the trouble in any means. and as consequence of the fourteen we know that sometime. it's the responsibility of the bulletin. officials were forced to choose the model follows he's trying to use up they tend to become the first documents has taken on a homeschooling. finally we spoke about the best way to eliminate the threat from criminals and terrorists using stolen and lost travel documents. biometrics could be a solution without the moment. very few countries can afford such a control system. we've seen that in the passport technologies of bolting to utilize biometrics as well and. issues like and s

this is an issue that officials with interpol have been screaming about for years, trying to get more countries to use their free database, it is clear the u.s. is one of the biggest users of the database, running passports through it more than 250 million times a year. >> wow! appreciate the update. you can follow me at twitter @anderson dp cooler. >>> i'll talk with the brothers of one of the missing americans, where they find their strength at a difficult time for any family. >> the evidence that made oscar pistorius lose his cool and throwup in court. still ahead. aflac. ♪ aflac, aflac, aflac! ♪ [ both sigh ] ♪ ugh! ♪ you told me he was good, dude. yeah he stinks at golf. but he was great at getting my claim paid fast. how fast? mine got paid in 4 days. wow. that's awesome. is that legal? big fat no. [ male announcer ] find out how fast aflac can pay you at aflac.com. chalky... not chalky. temporary... 24 hour. lots of tablets... one pill. you decide. prevent acid with prevacid 24hr. you decide. to truck guys, the truck is everything. and when you put them in charge of making an u

be told whether they were used to cross flights or borders. >> interpol is checking other passports against its record of stolen or lost travel documents. malaysian investigators have said they are looking at footage taken by security cameras, in particular of the two men travelling with the stolen passports. >> on the possibility of hijack, we are not ruling any possibility. however, it's important to state that our main concern is to focus efforts on finding the missing aircraft. >> relatives of passengers on board have been anxiously waiting for news. until the aircraft has been found, there'll be no answers, only questions and an agonising wait. >> interpol said that it's not only checking those two passengers travelling with stolen documents, they are connecting the entire manifest and saying that there are a few documents that are suspect. now, interpol in a sharply worded statement said that it hoped a situation like this wouldn't happen, and it didn't understand why it would take a tragedy before countries put prudent measures in place. the fact that passengers were travelli

interpol released this statement, for years interpol has asked, why should countries wait for a tragedyo put prudent security measures in place at borders and boarding gates? joining us is michael lighter and msnbc terrorism analyst, thank you so much for joining us. >> good to be here. >> tell us what your reaction was when you first heard there were two passengers on board with stolen passports. >> this went from an event which was all right suspicious to very suspicious. as tom and others have said, we don't know what it was, but certainly if you're in the counterterrorism business, you have to take small bits and try to understand the full picture. having two people with stolen passports who buy those tickets together, that's extremely suspicious and makes you look at this crash in a whole new light. >> where do you think the process broke down? explain what should happen and what failed to happen here? >> this was a complex endeavor, not as easy as some people may think. you have to make sure the stolen passports get reported to interpol. that may not have happened. and interpol se

a database run by interpol with more than 40 million travel documents. but of the one billion people who fly internationally each year, four out of every ten, a full 40% are never checked against it to see if they are traveling on false documents. even though the database costs nothing to access. 166 countries contribute information to the database, nearly tripling it's size in the past seven years. but the vast majority don't routinely use it. >> this is not a complicated system in terms of accessing the data. what you have to have is some capital and resources put to this and then they have to use it. >> reporter: cbs news security analyst juan zarate thinks not checking incoming passengers into the interpol database is a weakness in airline security. malaysia had access to the database, yet the manifest wasn't checked. >> there is no question that the international system, the aviation security system has to get better. no question the united states many ways, but the rest of the secretary-general has has become the gold standard in many ways, but the

a database run by interpol with more than 40 million travel documents. but of the 40 billion who travel every year, four out of every ten, a full 40% are never checked against it to see if they're traveling on false documents even though the database costs nothing to access. 166 countries contribute to the database, nearly tripling its size in the past seven years but the vast majority don't routinely use it. >> this is not a complicated system in terms of accessing the data. what you have to have is some capital and resources put to this, and then they have to use it. >> reporter: cbs news security analyst juan zarate thinks not checking incoming passengers against interpol's database is a glaring weakness in airline security. malaysia had access to the database, yet the manifest on flight 370 was never checked. >> there's no question that the aviation security system has to get better. there's no question that the united states has become the gold standard in many ways, but the rest of the world has to set up. >> reporter: interpol secretary-general ro

you work with interpol.terpol maintains this database 39 million travel documents reported lost or stolen in 166 countries. i want to say that again. 39 million travel documents reported lost or stolen in 166 countries. how in the world do they keep track of all this? do you trust interpol? >> i normally trust them. there are 166 countries is where they collect that da that. something like this should have been flagged. it's kind of odd it wasn't. you had two passports, both stolen in thailand over a two-year period. one was i think in august. it should have been flagged. it should have popped automatically when they put them into a database. >> now, when you board an airline and kuala lumpur is a big city, heading to beijing, coin, the crazy paranoid about visas there, wouldn't someone have run a passport through the database? don't they swipe them? doesn't it come up automatic? zblits automatic. it's no different than you going to jfk here on an international flight, your passport is swiped. if there is a

interpol was out today, the actual secretary-general of interpol came out expressing his real concerns this actually happened. i should point out it's not just malaysia where this has been happening. interpol says only a handful of countries regularly check their database to see what the latest is on stolen passports. so this is a glaring security error. it certainly looks like at this stage. interpol, concerned they did also -- should point out way too early to make a connection between stolen passports and the actual what may have happened to the plane, what may have happened. too early to make that connection. certainly this is an angle which is going to be looked at very closely. >> fascinating. thank you so much. andrew stevens in beijing. now onto health matters affecting millions of families, maybe even yours. a significant breakthrough in the research for predicting if you or a loved one could get alzheimer's disease. estimated 5.2 million americans have alzheimer's, the disease that causes memory loss. moments ago a new study was released on the first blood test that can predi

interpol can't tell if they were used to board other flights. >> interpol is checking other passports against its record of stolen or lost travel documents. malaysian investigators said they are looking at footage taken by security cameras, in particular of the two men travelling with the stolen passports. >> on the possibility of hijack, we are not ruling any possibility. it's important to state that our main concern is to focus or efforts in finding the missing aircraft. >> relatives of passengers on board the missing plane have been anxiously waiting for news. until the aircraft has been found, there'll be no answers, only questions, and an agonising wait. >> and with more on this let's bring in peter goals, the former managing director of the national transport safety board. thank you for your time. i know we don't know much about the case, but what jumps out at you most? >> what jumps out most is this is another challenging investigation that will take weeks, if not months. an open water search is extraordinarily challenging. we have done them before, but they are very difficult.

there's 800 million searches in interpol's database a year. it's up to each government's country to check the database not the airline. some once may not use the database because they simply don't have the technical capabilities or the resources to wire into interpol's network. brooke >> pamela, thank you so much. let's talk more with our cnn law enforcement analysis. tom, good morning to you. here's what i want to begin with. now the u.s. is sending that second u.s. war ship and we know the fbi is involved. it's been three days. this is a big jet. what's your read on that? >> that's true, brooke. the fbi would have been involved from the very beginning. the fbi has an office in the u.s. embassy in kuala lumpur and beijing and bangkok, thailand. some of this investigation will go back to the stolen pass ports. they were both stolen in the same play, one year apart and now turn up in use simultaneously to purchase two tickets for this flight. so, then the investigation, obviously, has been focusing from the beginning on who are the individuals

que para la cia no tienen que descartar la posibilidad de un acto terrorista, pero horas ante la interpolmas se inclinan a concluir que no se trata de un hecho de este tipo, tambiÉn fueron identificado los sujetos que abordaron con pasaportes robados los documentos uno de un ciudadano italiano y otro de un austriaco fueron reportados como robados a lo interpol. >> mil millones de personas montan en a un aviÓn todos los aÑos sin chequear el pasaporte esto es abrir una caja de pandora en medio de una investigaciÓn. >> la base de interpol contiene 40 millones de pasaporte que estÁn a disposiciÓn de la aerolÍnea, pero solo 3 paises utilizan este listado emiratos Árabes,, reino unido y estados unidos. >> se sospechaba que otros 3 pasajeros podrÍan haber utilizado documentos robados pero no. >> procedente de beijing llegaron familiares que seguirÁn su espera. >> hoy por cierto familiares informaron que llamaron a los telÉfonos celulares los familiares y escuchan el tono que indica que la llamada estÁ entrando pero expertos en la industria dicen que eso no significa algo, simplemente indica que

second, interpol has to get to that the country. third, airlines have to have access to country's information about this and it may have been the case that the malaysian authorities might have known the passport was stolen. the question is when these two check into an airport, do they have real-time ability to check against the passport? the answer, globally, that's very, very rare. united states is on the cutting edge because of the lessons of 9/11 and subsequent events we do this well globally, most countries do not. >> what about the practical security measures? what will be enacted in terms of security measures in the days/weeks following this. >> a lot of lessons learned about require us knowing what happened. passports, there will be some impetus for all countries to make sure there is some technical way for airlines to check in the very short amount of time they have, maybe the 40 minutes when someone checks into when they get on a plane to check those international databases. but that is resource intensive. not going to happ

interpol is trying to determine the identities of two passengers that boarded with stolen passports. 239 people were on the flight that disappeared off the coast of vietnam. we have the latest from kuala lumpur. >> there's no confirmation of what the mysterious object floating in the south china sea is. there's speculation that it may be part of the missing aircraft. the vietnamese navy plane had to turn back because it was too dark to investigate. once it's light the search mission by air is expected to resume and hopefully we'll have that information in a couple of hours. a day after two large oil slicks were spotted in the china sea comes another development. reports say parts of the the malaysia airlines plane may have been discovered. the navy planes have returned to base and will return the search on monday. the mystery surrounding the disappearance of m-h370 is deepening. the plane may have deviated from its course. it never issued a distress signal. questions are being asked as to how two passengers travelling on stolen passports could have boarded the flights. behind me is w

interpol is looking other questionable names on the manifest for this aircraft. right now -- this is from malaiysian officials -- they wil focus on finding the aircraft, because they say any of the answers to all these questions out there could possibly answered once they find that aircraft. >> all right. al jazeera's scott hieler reporting from kuala lumpur. thanks, scott. >>> it's been a violent weekend in rasiraq. today a suicide bomber killed at least 35 people. police say at least 50 cars were set on fire at an area checkpoint, and people were trapped inside. nearly 150 victims are being treated now for injuries, and then on saturday at least four people died from a car bomb blast in northern baghdad. it happened near a popular market, and it's still unclear who exactly is behind the bloodshed. >>> he's been missing for seven years. up next, we taek with the wife of former fbi agent robert levinson who has been missing in iran since 2007. that story and a whole lot more when al jazeera america returns. >> every sunday night al jazeera america brings you cont

interpol basically saying is not fair to say is too hard to check with interpol when it comes to lookingports as to whether they have been stolen. these passports, interpol knew they were stolen. the government has said time and again and he reiterates, we have checked into these to make individuals. nothing to do with that, nothing sinister about their actions. it begs the question have they let it slip? he did not want to answer that question. he needed it saying it is not for me to answer. he is the acton transportation minister, someone we believe who should answer. again he evaded the question. he said we know they were not on there for any kind of sinister purpose and that is where the investigation has stopped. >> back to his reference to possible survivors. what do you make of that after the prime minister came out and announced that due to the track of this airplane and the fact there was no place to land where it was in a remote location of the ocean, they are assuming there is no one that could have survived to this. what are they saying now? >> it is interesting that you know

. >> interpoll is involved in this.ll the information from the united states and other stations involved will go to interpol. >> what happened from the time that flight 370 took off until it lost contact two hours later is a mystery. >> what about the facial i.d. cameras? can they possibly make a match through computer imaging? >> yes, they could, if they have that technology in these airports. i would say perhaps united states, israel, other countries with high tech equipment could do that. right now no one has claimed responsibility if it was, in fact, a terrorist attack. here is another thought. who says it had to be these guys boarding the aircraft with the bomb or weapon. they are going to be talking to mechanics. somebody on the ground if it was a bomb could have placed a bomb on the aircraft. if it was then we know somebody else maybe around the world will be able to duplicate what these individuals did, get on an aircraft with fake identification and blow the darn thing up. hopefully, again, this isn't the case.

interpol says it was likely not the result of a terror attack. the men that used stolen passports had been identified as iranians. one 18 years old, the other 29. they entered malaysia using valid passports. they are broadening the search to the western part of the malaysian peninsula. no answers for family members. secretary of state, john kerry, postponed a face-to-face meeting with vladmir putin on how to solve the crisis in ukraine. ousted ukrainian president, victor yanukovych, showed up today in southwestern russia claiming and insisting that he is still the leader of his country and he will soon return to kiev, as soon as he possibly can. >> some pretty high drama in our nation's capital. senator dianne feinstein lashing out at the cia, accusing them of illegally searching the computers of the senate intelligence committee, a committee she heads. at the time, they were investigating the cia's detention and interrogation program. >> based on what director brennan has informed us, i have grave concerns that the cia's search may well have vio

the database that interpol has. passengers with stolen passports got on to that flight. the truth is, this is from the interpol press release, the truth is that in 2014 prior to the tragic disappearance of flight 370, malaysia's immigration department did not conduct a single check of passengers' passports against interpol's databases. what do you make of this? because pa malaysia claims that the computer system was too slow. >> that's an absurd claim. >> the malaysian claim? >> the united states queries that database 30 million -- sing ga p pore, 30 million times. in two-tenth of a second when the pass board is scanned, it goes through that database and it's scanned. that's a false claim. >> should we read anything into the fact that the interpol is releasing this statement? there was always suspicion about these iranian passengers. should we read anything about that? >> the director has been adamantly trying to get the countries of the world to query that database for outgoing flights. one billion tickets a year a

but now cnn's nic robertson reports, interpol is taking to malaysia to task for what it considers laxport security. >> reporter: three weeks ago, these two iranians traveling on stolen airports triggered interpol's investigation of flight 370's passengers. now in a statement, surprising for its frankness, the international law enforcers are lambasting malaysian officials for lax controls. the truth is, in 2014, prior to the tragic disappearance of malaysian flight 370, malaysian immigration department did not conduct a single check of passengers passports against interpol's database. the agency said in a statement. and they are not alone in their criticism. >> the idea that somehow governments don't want to query the databases because it takes too long is absurd. >> reporter: opposition politicians are also heaping on their criticism. >> it's quite clear that the impression given early by the government that it's not practical, takes too long is not an acceptable answer. >> it comes as malaysia's government is taking heat for their entire investigation. >> i don't think we have done a

the secretary-general of interpol says the stolen documents were from austria and italy but used valid iranian passports to fly to malaysia. >>> neither passport was reported it seems to men or listed in the databases of interpol. comparing the names and numbers against interpol database would not have a suspect the. >> it is suspected that the 19-year-old was trying to seek asylum in germany. >> the more information we get we are inclined to conclude it is not terrorism. >> there is still no trace of the plane with dozens of planes and ships scouring the waters between malaysia and vietnam but as we have learned, the plane could have been hundreds of mile off course. for the loved ones the uncertainty is what is unbearable. >> the worst possible news. at least there is what we call appropriate reaction whether it is grove or anger. >> the c.e.o. of the airlines said he is not discouraged. >> it must be there somewhere. we have to find it. >> another deficit in the mystery, the company is investigating an australian television report this the co-pilot on the missing night two years ago

and their concerns about the passports that were stolen and how they were used. >> interpol has said that these two stolen pals ports, they've confirmed that those names have been entered into interpol's database of lost or stolen travel documents. this is a vast database containing 40 million names from more than 100 countries, but it also revealed a shocking fact, saying it's completely dismayed that no country in the years since those parcels were stolen in 2012 and 2013, they said no country ran a search on these two passports against interpol's database. because of that, the agency's unable to tell whether these travel documents were ever used to board other flights or to cross borders. this is a system that is very easy, very cheap to use. it says to present terror acting, the system has to be used by more countries. it's not just immigration officials, it's banks, hotels, travel agencies abairlines who have access to this database. >> this could possibly kickstart -- thanks for that report. >> exactly. >> most of the passengers are onboard the flight from china, their relative

after 9/11 interpol built a huge data base of stolen documents over the world. it it's available to 200 countries. most countries don't bother running it through the database. it holds 1 billion documents that have been stolen. >> experts feel if the of flight was headed to america, it's likely they would have been caught. otherwise few countries are making sure passengers are who they say they are. interpol says it's a huge hole in security. >> families with relatives on flight 370 are losing patience. demanding more information. chinese officials are fielding complaints from relatives who believe they are not being told the truth. two brothers of a texas ibm executive on the plane spoke about how they are dealing with their ordeal. >> he was an incredible brother. he still is an incredible brother. he was like a mentor, you know. we all want to know what's going on, and we are just waiting, you know, just like everybody, to finally hear something to help us with this situation. >> it is a tough situation. once the plane is found, malaysia airlines says it will

since they went missing. >> interpol says it's checking all other passports used to abort the missing plane, against its record of stolen or loft travel documents. malaysian investigators said they are looking at footage taken by security cameras, in particular of the two men travelling with stolen passports. >> we are not ruling any possibility. however, it's important to state that our main concern is to focus our effort in finding the missing aircraft. >> relatives of passengers on board the plane has been waiting for news. until the aircraft has been found, there'll be no answers, only questions and an agonising wait. interpol says the investigation reveals that there are other suspicious documents used to board flight mh370, and they are investigating that at the moment. in a sharply worded statement, it's secretary-general said he hoped that a situation like this hadn't happened and that countries would take more prudent security members. there's no conclusive proof that the two people who travelled on the stolen documents could be behind the superstition of m-370. security expe

as to whether the pasport is valid or not, and no outside inquiry, and the secretary-general of interpol has been aggressively trying to make the countries make that inquiry when the flights are departing as well as having them cross border patrol in their country. that happens in many countries that when you enter the country, they are checked not only for arrest warrants or information in that country, but also if red notices or other notices were issued by interpol out of the headquarters in leone, and currently, not many countries do that, and now interpol has initiated a new project called "i check it" where they are going directly to the airlines around the world, and saying, are you interested, yourselves to having access to the inquire of the database. right now, two airlines are actually doing it, qatar air and arabian air, and it is a pilot study to see how it works out, and then expand to other airlines around the world, so it will not require the government, but the airlines, themselves, can do the inquiry about the documents used to issue tickets and boardingteresting, and y

alley interpol and thai authorities are both investigating this. information on the man something shared with u.s. intelligence. they will, no doubt, being running this information against the databases on suspected terrorists. >> all right. were the purchased in cash? >> they were purchased in cash. thai bought. last thursday i believe. >> one way tickets? they were flying to beijing and then to europe. they didn't need passport. >> one italian. >> and one as you industryian? >> that's correct, yeah. >> is there any indication these two knew each other? -- >> i think think bought their tickets together because the booking numbers were one number apart. we don't know whether they boarded together. malaysian authorities have reviewed the footage and have said there is no security protocols were broken when the men checked in and boarded any description of age how old they looked whether they had facial hair. >> they were non-asian appearance and then in a birds exchange the transport minister hinted they were black men but didn't say so directly. i

interpol's database has 39 million records of stolen travel documents.we are year board international flights where there's no inquiry made of that database. >> so it leaves an opening. very quickly here, i've been told by a u.s. official no nexus to terrorism, but is that a warning sign to you? >> certainly it's a warning when you're allowing 1 billion passengers to board annually where no inquiry is made. in the u.s. systems and several countries, the inquiry is made. interpol has a pilot project to have it so that the airlines can make a inquiry to that database, it's called i check it is the flame of that project. right now two airlines -- >> tom, hold that threat. we're going to come back to this. i'm jim sciutto. cnn "headline news" continues at the top of the hour. our own dr. sanjay gupta right now on cnn. >>> three big names stopping by today to talk about parenting, sex, drugs and hip-hop. we'll explain. but first, i want to talk about medical marijuana. as you may know, this is something i've been reporting on. yet there's a question that kept

it's interpol, for the whole world?we need to do is that malaysia airlines is not the only ones that don't check. actually, a very large number of countries and airlines don't do the simple check. >> why? >> one reason that you get is money. a lot of it is at the end of the day involved with spending more money on this check, having more as a result of having more checkers, setting an infrastructure but at the end of the day, when we see the costs of the searches now, not to mention the cost of human life, and if it was a terrorist attack, then being on the losing side in the world of terrorism, all of this is not really calculated into the formula by those people that take the decision not to do this check. >> it's not as if malaysia doesn't have terrorists. they do in that country. >> and keep in mind, this flight was designated to go to beijing and realizing the fact that the -- for the last couple of years, maybe a little more, the government -- the chinese government has been fighting against acts of terrorism by a

apparently they don't. >> well, interpol is reporting via the associated press interpol says no countryata base that had information about these passports. shouldn't that be standard operating procedure? >> well it should be. i think it shows that post-9/11 we may have entered into a period of complacency where we believe that the other levels of security, the other layers of security that we have in place are sufficient that you know, we're going to catch the bad guys, but on this case we just don't know. you know, alex, one thing i wanted to mention this could be a far less challenging event. if civil aviation authorities mandated the use of deployability flight data and voice recorders on transoceanic flights. these are -- they're available they've passed the test, they all to be put on these planes, because, you know, this is going to be weeks and months before we find these recorders. >> which actually would make my next question more easily have an answer to it. if this plane turned around peter, how much more difficult does it make it to try to find its whereabouts now? >> extrao

there were no checks made by any countries in the database that the interpol keeps. this database contains some 14 million names from 167 countries. so interpol says the fact none of the countries have made checks on nethese names means they're unable to find out if these people traveling on forged documents had made other travels into other countries and crossed borders. the malaysian authorities said that they have not ruled out any possibility of what might have happened. the fact that the passports were stolen and that they were used as travel documents now is also confirmed by the italian nation nationalist who says he doesn't think there was much done after he reported the loss to the police. >> maybe some people stole my passport, and i see my passport taish can they use it again? when i come back to italy, i talk with the police, italian police for a lock on my last passport so nobody could use it. >> investigators are checking surveillance video of two men believed to have boarded using the stolen identification. we'll continue to bring you the latest on thi

interpol released this picture and the identities of the two iranian men the focus of so much suspicion. one is 19 years old and it is believed he was seeking assume in germany. the second man is 29-year-old and interpol say they traveled to malaysia on their iranian passports and those passports were not reported stolen or listed in interpol databases but the men switched to stolen documents. >> when they arrived in kuala lumpur on 28th of february they boarded flight 370 using different identities. a stolen austrian and stolen italian passport. >> as for the plan, month sign of it, and search-and-rescue teams have expanded the scope of their search beyond the flight path and chinese media is reporting that the defense ministry will redeploy ten satellites in the hunt for the jet. the batteries on the black box only last for 30 days. >> in san francisco there is a broken water line. you can see it is gushing water in the streets of the lower area here. it does not appear to be flooding any homes but no word open how it could affect the water service in the neighborhood. >>> cvs pharmac

what i find shocking, alex, is interpol's statement, and i have no reason to believe this isn't true, that on a flight this size, it's not unusual to have two people traveling with false passports. that's a pretty astounding gap in security. dhs works routinely in terms of flights originating or traveling to the united states to check with interpol on stolen passports. we have to make sure we have an airtight system here as well, and i don't know that that's the case. >> one passport, but two seems rather jaw-dropping. if this was an act of terror, wouldn't somebody have claimed responsibility by now? >> that's another important indication that this may be a mechanical failure. it could be an issue with one of the pilots. so, you know, i still think it's more plausible that it wasn't terrorism related than it is, but probably the more routine explanation for the stolen passport says these two people were smuggling drugs or some other contraband. that's far more likely the case, particularly when you consider how common evidently it is, according to interpol, for people to be traveling

they are not alone in their criticism. >> the idea that somehow governments adopt want to query interpolases because it takes too long is frankly just absurd. >> opposition politicians here are also heaping on their criticism. >> it's quite clear the impression given earlier by the government that it's not practical, takes too long to check a database is not an acceptable answer. >> it comes as malaysia's government is increasingly taking heat for their entire investigation. >> i don't think we would have done anything different from what we've already done. i think, like i said in our earlier press conference, no matter what had been thrown and labeled at us, history will june us as a country that's been very responsible. >> still there are unanswered questions, a lot of them. for instance, the transport minister wouldn't slows disclose the altitude of 370 over the last six miles an hour despite acknowledging it went faster earlier in the flight. it could indicate if someone was in control of the flight. while the australian government said it was immediately shifting the certainly loca

interpol says it's a huge hole in security. >> jonathan betz joining us. now to speak to us about this is evy are pomporis, evi good to have you on the program. >> good to be here. >> i would think the airlines would want to run everybody through that passport machine or the database. why not? >> well, you would think that, but it's very time consuming. there's a lot of work and effort and manpower that goes into that. a lot of countries don't have that resource to put in. others aren't as diligence as we are. we have experienced 9/11 and we are more sensitive than other countries. they may not feel they are as vulnerable or as big a target as we are here in the u.s. >> we have heard about stolen passports. how often do you see fake passports that get through? >> counterfeit passports are much more difficult, the bar, the scanning, whatnot, they are probably easier to detect, they are easier to detect. usually when you want to board a plane what most criminals do is go underground and purchase real passports and insert their own photo in there and use thos

interpol said they put that on their own database. the fact that these two passports had, indeed, been stolen. but that information never got to immigration officials at malaysia's international airport in kuala lumpur, and no one yet is saying why that didn't happen. a lot of very big questions there. what we do know about these two passports, they were used -- the people who used them, they bought the tickets virtually simultaneously in bangkok on a china southern airlines flight. now, this is a co-chair with malaysian. so these two people must have known each other because it was a simultaneous buy virtually. their flight, the route is rather interesting, the flight was going to take them from kuala lumpur to beijing and then on to amsterdam and from there there were two further flights. the person holding the australian passport was going one place and the italian the other. you don't need a chinese visa to go through beijing, so beijing could have been their final destination but they wouldn't have had to apply for a visa. but, a

the head of interpol, the international police agency, is, though, downplaying, seemingly downplaying, the possible link to terrorism. ron noble saying indications increasingly point to some other explanation. more on this coming up. >>> malaysian authorities have identified two passengers traveling on stolen passports. and they say it's unlikely they were part of a terrorist group. the two passengers traveling with the stolen passports were young men from iran. authorities say they entered malaysia using valid iranian passports, but they used stolen austrian and italian passports to board the plane. our senior international correspondent, nic robertson, is joining us from london, investigating what's going on. police say there is no evidence the two young men were part of any terrorist group. what do authorities say they know about these two individuals? >> reporter: well, they believe they were young men. one of them, the one en route to frankfurt, was going to meet his mother there. indeed they say it was his mother who raised the alarm when he didn't get off that flight. it seems

interpol says they are still not sure that this was not an act of terrorism. passengers who boarded the plane with stolen passports were unlikely to be linked with terrorism. an 18-year-old was trying to travel to her mother in germany but there's still very little that we know about that aircraft that happened before it disappeared. let's bring in a former cia and fbi official. phil, good to see you. what's your gut here when you hear that the transponder was cut, no distressed call. the plane was flying in the wrong direction. as a counterterrorism expert, what is your take? >> we haven't seen a claim. secondly, this target isn't in what my world we would call iconic. it's not a target that's typically associated with terrorism. a western hotel, a nightclub, a western airliner, for example, out of britain, u.s., or israel. finally, you would think in the 21st century, that if there was a dirty person on that aircraft, a person associated with terrorism, with our databases today, something dirty would come up. this all tells me that while terrorism is somethi