U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered two air-travel safety reviews in the wake of an apparent attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airplane on Christmas Day, his spokesperson said Sunday.

White House spokesperson and adviser Robert Gibbs said the president wants a review of how officials compile data for the so-called "no-fly list," and if government agencies are following the right procedures to use that data effectively.

Gibbs said the president has also asked the Department of Homeland Security to review its passenger screening capabilities to ensure travellers cannot get on aircraft with banned or restricted chemicals.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, was charged Saturday with willful attempt to destroy an aircraft and with placing a destructive device on an aircraft in connection with Friday's incident.

The flight, which originated in Nigeria and had stopped in Amsterdam, was beginning its decent into the Detroit area just before noon when passengers noticed a man attempting to use an explosive device made up of a powdery substance and liquid.

The device failed, but the man suffered burns. A passenger and members of the flight crew worked together to subdue the man.

According to an affidavit, Abdulmutallab had an explosive device attached to his body, and a preliminary investigation determined the device contained PETN, also known as pentaerythritol.

It was the same chemical used by the attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid in a 2001 attempt to blow up an airplane.

"The president has asked the Department of Homeland Security to, quite frankly, answer the very real question about how somebody with something as dangerous as PETN could have gotten onto a plane in Amsterdam," Gibbs told ABC's This Week.

Suspect was flagged by his father

U.S. officials have admitted that they learned of Abdulmutallab in November when his father went to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria and said he was concerned that his son had become radicalized.

Abdulmutallab is in the U.S.'s Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database, which contains some 550,000 names. The database includes people known to be terrorists, or those suspected of having ties to a terrorist organization.

However, Abdulmutallab was not placed on the "no-fly list," nor was his visa to visit the U.S. revoked. It was granted in June 2008 and valid for two years.

Officials are now investigating claims that Abdulmutallab was given the explosive device and instructions by radicals in Yemen, an unstable country south of Saudi Arabia that experts consider a safe haven for al Qaeda.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended current passenger-screening guidelines Sunday and said that investigators did not have enough information to keep Abdulmutallab from boarding the flight.

"There (was) simply, throughout the law enforcement community, never information that would put this individual on a no-fly list or a selectee list. So that's number one," Napolitano told This Week.

"Number two, I think the important thing to recognize here is that once this incident occurred, everything happened that should have. The passengers reacted correctly, the crew reacted correctly."

Napolitano also pointed out that within 90 minutes, all 128 flights in the air at the time had been notified to ensure there were no other similar threats.

She said her department will be doing a "minute-by-minute, day-by-day" investigation into whether the information from Abdulmutallab's father was passed on from the embassy to other relevant agencies.

Abdulmutallab appeared Saturday before a judge in a conference room at a hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he was treated for burns.

An attorney appointed for Abdulmutallab said he was released from hospital Sunday and transferred to a federal prison about 80 km from Detroit.

A hearing will be held Monday to discuss the government's request for a DNA sample. Abdulmutallab won't be present at that hearing.