PORTLAND – Major changes are in place to bolster security at the Portland International Jetport, where a pair of hijackers boarded a plane two weeks ago to take part in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

The Federal Aviation Administration has assigned a full-time inspector to the jetport to consult on security issues, and the jetport has hired a private consultant of its own to assess security.

Private security workers are being more closely monitored in the passenger screening area, check-in baggage is routinely opened and inspected, and Portland police patrols have been beefed up at the airport.

Portland’s Transportation Director, Jeffrey Monroe, said the new security measures are not a sign the airport has done a poor job, but rather indicate a heightened sensitivity to security issues.

“Everybody has gone from complacent mode and now everything is heightened and everyone is trying to plug every hole,” said Monroe. “There has been nothing that has been a blatant issue.”

The Portland changes – and others that authorities won’t disclose – were put into place after the suicide hijackings of Sept 11.

Two of the 19 men who carried out the terrorist attacks – Muhamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari – entered the commercial aviation system that morning at Portland’s jetport. They caught a 6 a.m. U.S. Airways flight to Logan International Airport in Boston, where they boarded one of the targeted flights with several accomplices and flew the plane into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

The terrorists apparently used box cutters and other small blades in their carry-on baggage to take control of the jet.

City officials and security experts say the security staff screening the passengers in Portland did nothing wrong that morning; FAA rules allowed small blades in carry-on luggage as long as they did not exceed 4 inches in length. The men also had to pass through a second security screening in Boston before joining the connecting flight.

No one knows how many potential weapons have gone undetected since the attacks. But it appears that even with increased security, not every dangerous item is being seized.

Kathryn Dunsmoor of North Yarmouth said she mistakenly got a box cutter through both Boston and Portland airport security last Wednesday. Dunsmoor said she thought she had removed all of the box cutters she uses in her retail merchandising job from her briefcase before she boarded her flights.

She later learned she had walked through both Boston and Portland airport security with a box cutter in her carry-on luggage, she said. She turned the box cutter over to the security at the Northern Regional Airport in Presque Isle when she was flying back to the Portland area.

Federal and city officials could not say whether the changes in Portland are national requirements or if they address specific shortcomings at the jetport.

Some other airports, such as those in Bangor and Manchester, N.H., have not been assigned an FAA inspector, according to officials there.

Like Portland, however, the Bangor airport has implemented new security measures, including more thorough screening of carry-on and check-in baggage, more frequent testing of security staff, and increased police patrols at the airport. Bangor International Airport has also implemented parking restrictions and limited access to boarding areas as mandated by the FAA.