A Yemenia Air passenger jet with 153 people on board crashed early Tuesday as it tried to land during heavy wind on the island nation of Comoros. France said 66 on board were French nationals and most of the passengers were from Comoros, returning from France.

Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said the airline had previously met EU safety checks and was not on the bloc's blacklist.

He said however a full investigation was now being started amid questions about why the passengers were put on another jet in the Yemeni capital, San'a.

"We shall contact the Yemeni airline involved to see what happened and to verify the level of safety," Tajani told reporters. "The problem seems to be that the airliner was changed ... We have to verify what actually happened. We have to make sure Europeans traveling by air can feel safe."

France's transport minister Dominique Bussereau said in Paris that French aviation inspectors found a "number of faults" during a 2007 inspection of the plane that crashed.

Tajani said experts were preparing to update the EU blacklist in a couple of weeks.

The EU's blacklist is drawn up by airline safety experts, who conduct regular checks on all airlines that operate flights in and out of the 27-nation bloc.

The list currently contains 194 airlines, mostly from Africa, that are deemed by the EU not to meet international safety standards.

An airline that is placed on the list is banned from carrying out any flights in any EU country until it meets European safety standards and passes a new inspection.

Tajani said he was now working to set up a worldwide blacklist with other countries and airline associations to improve the safety of Europeans traveling abroad.