WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal aviation officials proposed regulations on Thursday to improve the performance of airport baggage screeners, saying tests show baggage screeners in the United States are not as thorough as those in Europe.

On average, screeners in an unnamed European country "were able to detect more than twice as many test objects as screeners in the United States," according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

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The European screeners, the FAA said, are both higher paid and better trained than U.S. baggage screeners, and have more experience than their American counterparts.

The proposed regulations would make screening companies accountable, along with air carriers, for screener performance and training. The FAA said it believes more rigorous qualifications and standards will lead to improved performance.

Currently, the FAA uses several types of screening technology in the nation's airports. One system, the Fictional Threat Image, or FTI, superimposes an image of a gun or a bomb onto the X-ray image of an actual passenger baggage being screened. "The image appears on the monitor as if a threat object actually exists within the passenger's bag," the FAA said.

Screeners can check whether the image is an actual threat before requesting that the bag be screened further.

The device "exposes screeners to threats on a regular bases to train them to become more adept at detecting threats and to enhance their vigilance," the FAA says.

According to the FAA, the average pay for screeners is $5.75 per hour and some screeners do not receive fringe benefits. Turnover rates exceed 100 percent in many locations.

The FAA believes higher pay, more training and frequent testing may reduce turnover rates and increase job performance.

The proposed regulations come three years after a White House commission made 20 recommendations to improve aviation security, including the development of standards for screeners and screening companies. The commission was set up following the crash of TWA flight 800, which initially was believed to have been the result of terrorism. While a formal cause of the crash has yet to be established, investigators believe it was caused by an explosion of the plane's center fuel tank.

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