ATLANTA --- Starting Monday, two federal inspectors stationed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport will begin training with bomb-sniffing dogs as part of a nationwide effort to increase cargo screening on passenger planes.

The Transportation Security Administration program aims to meet a requirement set by Congress in July that all cargo on passenger aircraft be screened for explosives by 2010, said Christopher White, the spokesman for the federal agency. In addition to passengers and their luggage, airlines routinely ship air cargo in airplanes.

"One of the overall strategies at TSA is to be more flexible, more mobile. We have very advanced technology; it happens to be in a dog," TSA Administrator Kip Hawley said Thursday.

The federal agency is spending $22.4 million over the next two years to train 170 new bomb-sniffing dogs -- 85 of them handled by TSA inspectors and 85 by local police -- and deploy them at U.S. airports.

"Having a team of 85 around the country, pairing up (TSA inspectors') knowledge on cargo with canine teams, that's a very expert resource, Mr. Hawley said.

Using agency employees to handle dog teams is important because they can focus almost entirely on airplane cargo, Mr. White said. He said police-handled dogs at U.S. airports are able to spend only part of their time at airport cargo warehouses.

The first TSA dog teams -- a dozen dogs and handlers destined for major airports in Miami, Los Angeles, New York and Washington -- were expected to graduate today from a 10-week training course at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Mr. White said. Those teams won't begin checking for explosives until May because of the time it will take for the dogs to get used to their new environment and be properly certified.

TSA is sending its dog teams to airports that put the largest volume of cargo on passenger planes, such as the Atlanta airport, the agency said. The teams mainly will be used to detect explosives in cargo, although Mr. White said they might be used elsewhere in the airport in an emergency.

The new dog teams handled by local police will be used in overall security at U.S. airports, spending about a quarter of their time on air cargo inspection. They will join nearly 500 police-handled explosive detection dog teams already at airports across the country.

At the end of the year, nearly 700 bomb-sniffing dogs will be at U.S. airports, Mr. White said.