Screen passports against Interpol's database before leaving a country

The use of stolen passports by two passengers on Malaysia Airlines MH370 has revealed an existing oversight of countries around the world in using the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) database in checking an individual before leaving a country.

Citing media reports from the Associated Press of the Canada, CTV News Interpol’s Secretary General, Ronald K. Noble said although Interpol had reminded authorities of cases involving stolen passports, there were still those who travelled using stolen passports.

"While it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol's databases," General Ronald K. Noble said in a statement.

Malaysia Airlines had confirmed on Sunday that the identities of the passengers were not cross-checked with Interpol's database before they were allowed on board.

In a sharply worded criticism of shortcomings of national passport controls, Interpol, said it was investigating and working to determine the true identities of the passengers who used the stolen passports to board the Boeing 777 which disappeared Saturday -- less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for Beijing.

Information about the thefts of an Austrian and Italian passports being stolen in 2012 and 2013 was keyed into Interpol's database after they were stolen in Thailand, however these passports were not cross-checked before the flight on Saturday, the police body said.

The Lyon, France-based agency added that "unfortunately", few member countries systematically search its databases to see whether stolen travel documents or passports were being used by passengers.

In an interview with The Associated Press in January 2010, Noble had warned that "the greatest threat in the world" was that at the time, a half-billion international air arrivals worldwide took place in which travel documents were not compared against Interpol databases. Some countries have woken up to the threat more than others: In 2006, U.S. authorities scanned the database about 2,000 times -- but did so 78 million times just three years later.

For years, Interpol has asked why countries would "wait for a tragedy to put prudent security measures in place at borders and boarding gates.".

"Now, we have a real case where the world is speculating whether the stolen passport holders were terrorists, while Interpol is asking why only a handful of countries worldwide are taking care to make sure that persons possessing stolen passports are not boarding international flights," said Noble on Sunday.

He hoped "that governments and airlines worldwide will learn from the tragedy of missing flight MH 370 and begin to screen all passengers' passports prior to allowing them to board flights."