(<a href=www.reuters.co.uk target=_blank>Reuters) Visitors from Europe and elsewhere who don't need visas for short trips to the United States have been fingerprinted and photographed on arrival at U.S. airports as part of an expanded effort to secure American borders. Travellers arriving from 27 "visa waiver" nations on Thursday had to undergo two digital index-finger scans and have their photographs taken before clearing immigration portals. The new procedures apply to nearly two dozen European countries such as Britain, France and Germany as well as Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei. It extends a program started in January that requires people arriving in the United States with visas to have their pictures and fingerprints taken.