About 16 passengers were not screened after a power failure at a security checkpoint caused it to malfunction about 3.15pm yesterday.

Sydney Airport ordered the re-screening of the entire terminal, including passengers who had already boarded their planes and were waiting to take off.

Flights from Virgin Blue, Tiger Airways, Jetstar and QantasLink flights were affected.

"It affected our entire network so it was a significant disruption," Virgin Blue's corporate communications manager Melissa Thomson said this morning.

Ms Thomson said the airline provided some passengers with accommodation overnight and would be adding an extra flight today to help clear the backlog. She said she could not specify how many Virgin Blue passengers were affected but said that the airline "cleared quite a number of people" last night.

She said all stranded passengers would be put on flights by the close of business today.

'Terminal operating as normal today'

"The terminal is operating as normal and the airlines have put on extra flights this morning for the stranded passengers," a Sydney Airport spokesman told AAP this morning.

Twenty-nine flights were cancelled yesterday.

Jetstar said in a statement last night it was working to clear a backlog of 2000 passengers.

It said 15 Jetstar flights heading to Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast yesterday were cancelled as a result of the delays and curfews.

"Jetstar is endeavouring to have all disrupted passengers to their end destinations ... and will be accommodating passengers on next available services with Jetstar or Qantas and six ad hoc services that will operate ... to and from Sydney," the airline said in the statement.

"Jetstar sincerely regrets and apologises for this unforeseeable disruption to our passengers and is working hard to ensure travel plans are restored leading into the Easter break."

Passengers were advised to check their flights with their airline before they went to the airport today.

with AAP