The automated online scanning tool simulates a search that someone looking for fraudulent material would run.

CNN: Microsoft campaign takes aim at global Internet fraud

Merchant vessels which had been diverted to help the search had also stopped scanning the area.

BBC: Two missing in storms

Google, an internet giant that has been scanning and digitising books for inclusion in its search engine, now offers thousands of books that are in the public domain free on mobile phones.

ECONOMIST: Electronic-book readers

Still, security experts believe there's always a chance that a potential terrorist could slip onto a plane, regardless of whether he's subject to scanning at a high-tech kiosk or a hand search of bags and shoes.

FORBES: Ez-Pass Airport Security

That is the way most of today's Web-search sites look for multimedia files--by scanning "metadata" associated with Web content.

FORBES: co-founder Sergey Brin