Paris, Jan. 7 (Reuters): France said today the US had asked it to track down an Afghan suspect behind an aviation scare that has forced a spate of cancellations and delays to US-bound flights.

The search comes as European countries study US demands that airlines carry armed air marshals on some US-bound planes to guard against September 11-style attacks, with some companies vowing to cancel flights rather than comply.

Despite the fresh jitters, European airline stocks surged as strong traffic and earnings figures from British Airways offered signs that passenger concerns on safety were easing. A judicial source said France’s DST state security office was searching for an Afghan listed in the US as a terrorist and suspected of preparing an attack against a cancelled December 24 flight from Paris to Los Angeles.

“I confirm that we are looking for someone. I cannot tell you anything more,” French justice minister Dominique Perben told RMC radio, asked to give details of the police search. The US television channel ABC reported yesterday that the suspect, a passenger who failed to show up for the flight, was suspected of having links to the militant al Qaida network and might have a small bomb to attack planes. The French judicial source, who requested anonymity, gave the name of the suspect as Abdu Hai. The source said his name did not appear on French files of suspects and that a formal anti-terrorist probe had not been launched for the time being.

There was no immediate word on his possible whereabouts. ABC said the suspect had a French passport and his details had been passed on to security officials at London’s Heathrow Airport. In Washington, a CIA spokesman dismissed the ABC report.

Concern has focused on British Airways Flight 223 from London to Washington’s Dulles International Airport in recent days. It was cancelled twice last week and delayed several times due to extra security procedures. With new security alarms seen as inevitable, authorities are under pressure to protect airlines from terror attacks while creating minimum inconvenience to passengers and justifying the potentially huge costs involved in upgrading security.

The Bush administration yesterday selected three companies to design options for protecting US commercial airliners from shoulder-fired missiles such as that used in a failed November 2002 bid to shoot down an Israeli airliner in Kenya. More controversially, the US began this week fingerprinting and photographing foreigners arriving at more than 100 airports and has called for airlines to carry armed marshals on selected flights.

Two airlines — South African Airways and Thomas Cook Airlines, the charter flight arm of Europe’s second biggest travel firm — rejected the proposal yesterday.