In view of potential terroristic attacks on public areas like airports, metro stations, stadiums etc. it is important to detect suspect persons like suicide bombers before they can bring the explosive to detonation. This detection of the explosives must not be recognized by the suspect persons. It should deliver online results and should be performed in a stand-off way without direct contact to the suspect person (remote sensing). The open-path FTIR spectroscopy is a promising tool for that specific task. In this paper several applications are described and first measurement results for the online detection of TATP are presented. Moreover a short glance on further planned research items is given.