A woman living with a physical disability says she was made to feel like an "inanimate object" after being pulled aside at Adelaide Airport for a search.
Tammy Milne, who has arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, was visiting Adelaide from Hobart, and said she felt "targeted" by authorities.
Ms Milne landed at the airport on May 16, and wanted to go back through security to get something to eat from the food court.
She said she lined up on her motorised scooter, and went through the usual process of being asked to exit the line and be patted down.
"Then the security officer said, 'I want you to go to a private room with me, we need to further investigate this'," she said.
Ms Milne said she pulled her trouser legs up so the staff member could see she had full-leg orthotics.
"It's fairly obvious what they are when people pull the trouser legs up, but she wasn't happy with that," Ms Milne said.
"There was an instant where she was suggesting I might have to take them off.
"Even if that was going to happen, there were no facilities in that room.
"It wasn't even disability-friendly for that to happen."
Ms Milne said a supervisor then stepped in and the situation de-escalated.
She said the supervisor quietly apologised for what had happened.
"The woman that was instigating this whole thing had no empathy or compassion for me as an individual … I could have been a loaf of bread," Ms Milne said.
"She was doing the job, to an inanimate object, with no compassion to me as a human."
Adelaide Airport said it has reviewed Ms Milne's case and had interviewed screening staff.
"While we acknowledge that the required screening process in some instances may seem intrusive, we are satisfied that the correct steps were taken in accordance with Aviation Transport Security regulations and standing operating procedures," a spokesperson said.
"We have policies and programs in place to assist people with disability including measures to support people with disability at our security screening points.
"We would be pleased to discuss the matter further with Ms Milne if she would like clarification on our screening procedures."
Call for overhaul of security processes
JFA Purple Orange's Belle Owen said her heart went out to Ms Milne, and called her experience unacceptable.
"I use a power wheelchair for mobility … and I know just how stressful, upsetting and dehumanising the experience of air travel can be, particularly as a person and even more specifically a woman with disability," the advocacy group's manager of policy and projects said.
"We see that individual airlines and individual airports all have different policies, and even the way those policies are enacted is really reliant on the individual person."
Ms Owen said she wanted to see an overhaul of security processes for people with disabilities.
"We want those processes to be co-designed by travellers who are disabled, who understand what it's like when we have to go through these experiences," she said.
"Of course we need to be safe in airports, but the safety they think they're creating in scrutinising a disabled person is taking away that disabled person's safety.
"So what's the compromise?"
Incident not the first at Adelaide Airport
Last May, Australia's former disability discrimination commissioner Graeme Innes described his transit through Adelaide Airport security as "humiliating" and "distressing".
He said he was refused access to use the body scanner and was asked to use a walk-through X-ray scanner, with his guide dog put through separately.
"I feel sick in the stomach every time I go to an airport," he told the ABC.
Disability access consultant Akii Ngo raised similar concerns last year about treatment after falling out of an airline wheelchair when returning back to Adelaide from Sydney.
"We were on the flight bridge, there's a lot of bumps — essentially they pushed me too hard, I fell right out of the chair," Akii said.
"The first thing the staff member said was: 'You should have held on tighter'."
