Terrorist on flight to U.S.

On Christmas Day there was a Nigerian terrorist who attempted to start a fire and explosion on a Northwest/Delta flight from Amsterdam bound for Detroit. Luckily, a bunch of passengers/crew subdued him before a casualty took place-congrats to them for their efforts. There are two questions that remain from this:
-The flight originated in Amsterdam, would he have gotten on the plane if it had originated in the United States. This calls into questions the security procedures of other nations, particularly allies of us in Europe. Since the United States has little jurisdiction over that, it makes this whole ordeal an international problem as opposed to just a domestic security problem.
-The man in question was on the terrorist watch list but not a no-fly list. I think it is time to combine the two of them.