"There has been a widespread agreement that amongst the various other counter-terrorism measures that APEC should consider is measures to stop the trade and trafficking in what is known as MANPADS -- handheld anti-aircraft missile systems," Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.

"And we are pleased that APEC has now agreed to explore ways in which it can overcome the threat of MANPADS and Australia has been very supportive of that," he said after a meeting of APEC finance and foreign ministers.

A draft declaration to be issued at the end of the leaders' meeting, obtained by AFP, said that an "APEC Action Plan" on MANPADS would be adopted at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) talks.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell advanced the proposal Saturday, telling the meeting that: "No threat is more serious to aviation," according to his spokesman Richard Boucher.

"There was strong and shared concerns about the issue and the plenary (meeting) asked senior officials to continue to work the issue," Boucher said.

There are growing fears that terrorists could use MANPADS, short for man-portable air-defense systems, to shoot down commercial planes and the United States is leading the push to stop the weapons from getting into the wrong hands.

Portable missiles became front-page news last November, when alleged terrorists fired two SA-7 surface-to-air weapons at a Boeing 757 airliner chartered to evacuate Israeli civilians out of Mombasa, Kenya.

Downer did not go into detail on the measures to be taken against the weapons but said that "clearly the focus of the discussions within APEC has been on the trade in MANPADS and access to MANPADS."

"Of course it's very debatable who illicitly has MANPADS... but there are many that are available illicitly within the region," he said.

"It's very important that any movement in MANPADS between countries, any trade in MANPADS be very closely regulated and controlled."

The alleged mastermind of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror cell, Hambali, now in US custody, has admitted he was planning to use the portable shoulder-launched missiles to attack commercial jets in Bangkok.

Manufacturers of MANPADS include the United States, China and Russia and there are reports that such weapons obtained by the al-Qaeda terror network are Russian-made.

A delegate at the APEC talks Saturday said that Malaysian Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz voiced support for the ban on missile trade but objected to the narrow focus of the measure, saying other weapons were a concern as well.

At a senior APEC officials' meeting last week, Vietnam and China also expressed reservations and warned against the politicisation of the APEC process through bringing issues like that to the forum, he told AFP.

SPACE.WIRE