Examines container in ship (5)
I believe the answer is:
scans
'examines' is the definition.
(scanning is a kind of examining)
'container in ship' is the wordplay.
'container' becomes 'can' (can is a kind of container).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'ship' becomes 'SS' (prefix in ship names eg SS Great Britain).
'can' placed into 'ss' is 'SCANS'.
(Other definitions for scans that I've seen before include "Glances over" , "CAT and PET" , "medical examinations" , "CAT and MRI" .)