The UK has APIS. The UK Border Force has all of our details before our aircraft has taken off. If they want to keep out the terrorists they can deny permission to the airline before take off.
There are other countries that also require passengers to submit information before travel with that info being made available to officials in the destination country (USA for example), yet you may still have to undergo immigration checks on arrival.
APIS is all very well but it does nothing to stop people who are flying on altered or borrowed passports or people who might not show up as suspicious on the computer but when given face to face questioning may well turn out to be dodgy.