"In July 2007, this plane gave us occasion to start inquiring about the safety record of Yemenia," the offical said, on condition of anonymity.
"The concern was (about) incomplete reporting procedure and incomplete follow-up ... Member states did 24 inspections over two years, showing its record was improving."
Separately, EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said Yemenia had passed the necessary checks to avoid a ban on operating in the 27-nation bloc, but that EU experts would ask it to explain what had happened in the Comoros accident.
Yemen's transport minister said the crashed aircraft underwent a thorough inspection in May under Airbus supervision.
The A310-300 plane was carrying 153 people from Sanaa in Yemen to Moroni, the capital of the Comoros. Only one 5-year-old boy was thought to have survived.
Tajani, the EU's top transport official, did not say whether concerns over the crashed Airbus had initially prompted the EU inquiry into Yemenia, but he did confirm the airline had not been banned from operating in Europe.
"The airline wasn't on the (EU) blacklist because it had passed the checks ... After today's accident we shall be contacting the company and we should verify the blacklist ," he told a news conference in Brussels.
Tajani added that EU air safety experts would meet later on Tuesday to discuss the implications of the crash, which occurred in bad weather, and said he would propose to other world airline authorities the creation of a global airlines blacklist .
"If we want to achieve better safety, I am convinced that we need to have a worldwide blacklist . The European blacklist works pretty well in Europe," he said of a list set up two years ago.
