IF Britain wants to stop the flow of young people heading to Syria via Turkey it needs to do more to stop them getting there in the first place.

Serious intelligence failings have allowed three London schoolgirls to travel to Syria following Twitter contact with a young woman who became a “jihadi bride” in 2013.

Scotland Yard officers investigating the disappearance of a 15-year-old to Syria from the same school spoke to the girls in December.

It said there was “nothing to suggest at the time” that the teenagers were planning to leave the UK.

The failings did not end there.

To the dismay of their parents, neither the UK Border Force nor Turkish Airlines reported concerns about three young teenage girls, aged 15 and 16, taking a well-travelled route to Syria last week.

Turkish Airlines allows children as young as 13 to travel unaccompanied, and the UK’s border controls are set up to stop people coming into this country but pay scant attention to anyone leaving.

Yesterday, William Hague suggested that the parents of children at risk of joining Islamic State should confiscate their passports to stop them travelling abroad.

Of course the first line of defence is at home, but surely the Border Force could play a more effective role in preventing brainwashed children travelling to abroad? And surely no one under the age of 18 should be allowed to apply for a passport without the signature of a parent?

As a result of last week’s failures, MPs are calling for an urgent review of Britain’s border controls to stop teenagers joining the jihad. It cannot come soon enough.