PASSENGERS in private jets are “waved through” John Lennon Airport without passport checks, it was claimed yesterday, in a fresh row over border security.

Leaked emails revealed that JLA was among a number of airports where staff are not “allowed physically to see the passengers” arriving on private charter flights.

Instead, under changes introduced quietly in January, pilots submit a list of their passengers before take-off – and only flights that “cause concern” are checked on arrival.

Labour said the revelation made a mockery of last week’s claim, by the beleaguered Home Secretary Theresa May, that “nobody would be waved through” because of relaxed border checks.

But, answering an urgent question in the Commons, immigration minister Damien Green defended the use of “intelligence-led checks against high-risk passengers”, telling MPs: “These measures were aimed at strengthening our border.”

Insisting the claim that any passengers on a private flight were waved through was “simply wrong”, he added: “It’s safer to check it before it arrives. All private flights are checked against the warnings index before they arrive.”

And, arguing that “high-risk flights were missed” under Labour’s approach, Mr Green added: “This left our country open to the risk of drug smuggling, illegal immigration and gun running.”

The emails were revealed just hours before Brodie Clark, the former head of the UK border force, told the Home Affairs Select Committee he did not “extend” border control trials, in defiance of Mrs May’s instructions.