Airports to ban cigarette lighters beyond checkpoints.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Byline: Bryon Okada

FORT WORTH, Texas _ In what could become a major hassle for air travelers who smoke, the Homeland Security Department will ban all cigarette lighters beyond airport checkpoints beginning Feb. 15.

The Intelligence Reform Bill that President Bush signed Dec. 17 orders the Transportation Security Administration to review its banned-items list and to prohibit passengers from carrying butane lighters aboard planes. Legislation stipulates that the ban must be in place in 60 days.

"We are reviewing the necessary changes that the Transportation Security Administration will need to make based on the new intelligence legislation," TSA spokeswoman Andrea McCauley said.

The TSA may also expand the banned-items list to include matches, aviation industry sources have said. No decision has been made, according to one TSA official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

But if a ban is enacted, it isn't clear how screeners would detect matches, short of a time-consuming physical search.

In 2003, former TSA head James Loy determined that two lighters and four books of matches were "an acceptable level of risk" to balance security and customer service. But over the next year, Loy's decision was criticized as too lax.