Calling the process of rendition “outsourcing,” a federal appeals court judge in New York sharply questioned government lawyers yesterday at a hearing involving a Syrian-born Canadian detained at Kennedy Airport in 2002 and sent to Syria, where he was held for 10 months.

The man, Maher Arar, received a multimillion-dollar settlement from the Canadian government this year after it was determined that American officials removed him from the airport in an act of rendition, under which terrorism suspects are sent abroad for interrogation in countries that often practice torture. Mr. Arar said he had been beaten repeatedly, and the Canadian government apologized to him and his family for the “terrible ordeal” after an inquiry found that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had wrongly told United States agents that he was suspected of being an extremist.

The judge, Robert D. Sack, was on a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals weighing whether to reverse the dismissal of a civil rights lawsuit filed by Mr. Arar against the United States. The suit was dismissed last year after a lower court ruled that it had no authority to review the case because it touched on national security and foreign relations.

Mr. Arar, a software engineer, was changing planes at the airport, en route to Canada, when he was detained by federal officials who claimed he was a member of Al Qaeda. He was flown to Jordan, then taken overland to Syria. He said he was beaten and forced to make a false confession before his release in 2003.