This paper deals with the problem of additional sensor location in order to recover the state and input observability for structured linear systems. The proposed method is based on a graph-theoretic approach and assumes only the knowledge of the system's structure. It allows one to provide the minimal number of the required sensors and either their pertinent location or a necessary and sufficient condition which allows one to check if a sensor location is adequate or not. We obtain a sensor placement procedure based on classical and well-known graph theory algorithms, which have polynomial complexity orders. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.