Airport Security Patdown Modified

The Transportation Security Administration is slightly altering the way airport screeners conduct patdown searches by allowing passengers to put their arms down after their upper bodies are checked.

TSA spokesman Mark Hatfield called it "a small adjustment that we're hoping will lead to a large increase in comfort factor for people in secondary screening." The new procedure takes effect on Monday.

Allowing passengers to put their arms down will help them feel less conspicuous while they're being searched, Hatfield said.

"We're always looking for a better way to do what we do, both to increase security and increase customer service," he said.

Hundreds of people have complained about the searches, which began on Sept. 22 after two Chechen women were believed to have blown up two Russian jet liners this past August.

One woman who complained is Gwen Laine, a 62-year-old grandmother. Laine said she had no idea a trip to the airport would bring her close to tears. "It was very humiliating. I almost started to cry there," she told CBS News Correspondent Kelly Cobiella

Laine was pulled aside by a security screener, for a pat-down search around her breasts.

"She was going to put her hands on me and I put my hands up and said, 'No! What are you doing?'"

Laine is not the first passenger to complain.

"They did a breast exam! And not with the side of the hand, with the palm!" said singer and actress Patti LuPone after being publicly frisked at the airport in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

With the exception of test equipment at six airports, the TSA's screening machines cannot detect nonmetal explosives on passengers.