  Temperature dependence of pion and sigma-meson screening masses is evaluated
by the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model with the
entanglement vertex. We propose a practical way of calculating meson screening
masses in the NJL-type effective models. The method based on the Pauli-Villars
regularization solves the well-known difficulty that the evaluaton of screening
masses is not easy in the NJL-type effective models.The PNJL model with the
entanglement vertex and the Pauli-Villars regularization well reproduces
lattice QCD results on temperature dependence of the chiral condensate and the
Polyakov loop. The method is applied to analyze temperature dependence of pion
screening mass calculated with state-of-the-art lattice simulations with
success in reproducing the lattice QCD results.
