Budget airline Jetstar says it will seek damages after a Sydney Airport security lapse at Terminal 2 left thousands of its passengers stranded.

Yesterday, Sydney Airport had to clear the area and rescreen all passengers after a walk-through security screening device had lost power, resulting in 16 passengers passing through without being properly screened. Consequently, Virgin Blue, QantasLink and Tiger Airways flights were significantly delayed.

Out of the 29 flights that had to be cancelled because of the security breach, 15 were Jetstar flights. The airline said it would discuss damages with Sydney Airport over the disruption, which left 2000 of its passengers stranded overnight.

"We will be having discussions with Sydney Airport to seek damages for what happened," said a Jetstar spokeswoman.

"We will be looking for some form of compensation as there has been a huge disruption to our service."

Sydney Airport said the organisation would wait to hear from Jetstar before commenting, although it defended its decision to rescreen passengers earlier today.

"You can't cut corners on security. Security and safety are our most important priorities at the airport, and you just have to follow that process," Rod Gilmour, General Manager of Corporate Affairs said.

Sydney Airpor said they are still investigating what caused a loss of power to one of the security screens.