Turkey's Interior Minister Besir Atalay said that Turkey would start using biometric passports in line with international standards on June 1.

"Regular passports will be red and diplomatic passports will be black," Atalay told a press conference after a meeting of the Reform Follow-Up Group in the central province of Konya.

Atalay said actual passports could also be used till 2015, and the government had prepared a bill to raise passport validity term to ten years from five.

A biometric passport, also known as an e-passport or ePassport, is a combined paper and electronic passport that uses biometrics to authenticate the identity of travelers. It uses contactless smart card technology, including a microprocessor chip (computer chip) and antenna (for both power to the chip and communication) embedded in the front or back cover, or center page, of the passport.

The chip inside the passport contains information about the holder's face - such as the distances between eyes, nose, mouth and ears. These details are taken from the passport photograph that you supply. They can then be used to identify the passport-holder. The chip also holds the information that is printed on the personal details page of your passport.