London, Feb 6 (IANS) Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan isn’t intimidated by the full body-scan machines that have been recently installed at London’s airports – in fact, he’s been signing off printouts of his X-rays. ‘I was in London recently going through the airport and these new machines have come up, the body scans. You’ve got to see them. It makes you embarrassed – if you’re not well endowed.

‘You walk into the machine and everything – the whole outline of your body – comes out.’

Khan said he did not know that the body-scans – installed in the wake of last year’s abortive Christmas Day bombing of a transatlantic flight over Detroit – showed up every little detail of one’s body. ‘I was a little scared. Something happens [inside the scans], and I came out.

‘Then I saw these girls – they had these printouts. I looked at them. I thought they were some forms you had to fill. I said ‘give them to me’ – and you could see everything inside. So I autographed them for them.’

Impossible, according to Transportation Secretary Lord Adonis (there is a joke in there somewhere):

The Cabinet Minister said the images from the scans are deleted “immediately” and staff carrying out the procedure are fully trained and supervised. “At the moment, people accept that they are subject to a pat-down search when they have gone through the metal detector,” he told BBC Breakfast.

“A pat-down search is a pretty intrusive procedure but people accept that because it is important that we do detect whether there are weapons or other powerful substances that people may be carrying. “A body scanner is in the same category – it is very important to stress that the images which are captured by body scanners are immediately deleted after the passenger has gone through the body scanner.

“Staff are, of course, properly trained and supervised who manage the body scanners.”

If you have nothing to hide, then what’s the problem….. Right?