Canadian authorities have vowed to implement stronger measures to protect passengers after Canadian travellers were wrongly detained when their baggage tags were switched onto suitcases containing drugs.

The decision followed a recent investigation by CTV News, which found that at least 17 individuals with flights leaving Canada were accused of drug smuggling and detained over the past year.

CTV noted documents and court records showed that officials only later discovered that the tags of the victims’ clean baggage had been unsticked and attached onto the ones filled with drugs by corrupt airport workers.

It was gathered that all were later released, but only after some were handcuffed, arrested and jailed.

The cases reportedly involved flights leaving Canada to the Dominican Republic, Paris, Germany, Morocco, Bermuda, the Philippines and South Korea, where drug smuggling can attract death penalty.

One of the victims was Nicole, a 35-year-old woman from Toronto, who was on a trip to New Zealand with her family when Canada Border Services Agency boarded her plane shortly before takeoff after a stopover in Vancouver.

Reports stated that she was accused by authorities of transporting narcotics, claiming her luggage contained eight packages of suspected methamphetamine weighing 20.52 kilogrammes.

Ms Nicole was later released after being detained for about seven hours without any explanation. 

She noted that the airport surveillance might have shown that the suitcase she checked in at the airport was different from the one containing drugs with her tag attached to it. 

As part of crackdown on the scheme, six baggage and ramp workers were arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at the Toronto Pearson International Airport in connection with the alleged bag tag switching cases last year. 

In a statement on the issue on Monday, Transport Canada said it was examining additional measures “to ensure the highest standards are in place to protect passengers, workers and airport operations.”