South Korea has warned that henceforth, passengers are to be pre-screened prior to flying into the country and any entrants deemed inappropriate would be banned from boarding a plane at the point of departure.

The Justice Ministry said on Wednesday in Seoul that the exercise, was aimed at strengthening the aviation safety and border security by analysing the passenger information in advance.

The ministry said it had recently made a pre-announcement of a bill revision stipulating the restriction of passengers such as terrorists, drug addicts or patients with infectious diseases from flying into the country.

It insisted that with the proposed change, the carriers would be obliged to provide passenger information to the ministry for approval before issuing the tickets.

The ministry said before now, the Immigration Bureau had been receiving passenger information through the Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS) only after take-off, making offences on board the planes difficult to prevent.

It said but now with the new rule, the airlines would be able to avoid the hassle of returning the rejected passengers back to the point of departure.

The ministry disclosed that during the test operations in Nagoya Airport in Japan, Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China and Bangkok International Suvarnabhumi Airport in Thailand, 157 passengers were banned from taking flights to South Korea.

It said this was because on the list, a number of passengers were holding stolen passports and an American with a record of sex offences.