Jetstar executives say they are investigating a complaint from Paralympian Kurt Fearnley who says he was forced to crawl through Brisbane Airport because the airline would not let him take his wheelchair on board the flight.

The airline offered him one of their chairs, but he says he could not move it properly.

The Federal Discrimination Commissioner says he is shocked that this sort of thing still happens in 2009.

Fearnley has become a household name after crawling the Kokoda Track less than a week ago.

But he says when he returned to Australia he was forced to crawl through Brisbane Airport when Jetstar demanded he check his wheelchair in as luggage.

Fearnley says he was offered an airline owned chair but it was unsuitable. He says it was humiliating.

"I had been looking forward to the relief of getting home for two weeks. Every night I said I've been sore," he said.

"Every night I was just looking forward to getting back to my place and relaxing and then I'm an hour away from home and this happens, and for the last three days it has not been relaxing."

Fearnley says longstanding cultural prejudices still exist for people with a disability.

"If this happened in America, the airline wouldn't be functioning tomorrow," he said.

"If this happened in Australia to someone of a different race, if this happened to someone of a different sexuality, someone who is against the norm, someone who is obese, the airline wouldn't be functioning tomorrow.

"I feel like tomorrow I will be locking myself in a room and going to sleep. Right now I just feel like there is a burden, a sense of relief that hopefully in a couple of days things will be a little bit different."

The Government has announced a review of how the system can be changed to improve the quality of life for people with a disability.

Jetstar says it has not received a formal complaint from Fearnley or was aware of the problem when it happened four days ago.

The airline is now trying to clarify why Fearnley was prevented from using his own wheelchair after checking in at Brisbane Airport.

Normally disabled passengers are allowed to take their own wheelchairs to the gate before being transferred to the airline's wheelchair for boarding

Jetstar's head of corporate relations, Simon Westaway, says the processing of the chair was done at the check-in rather than at the gate.

"We are just getting to the bottom as to why that occurred. In an ideal world we would consistently do it at the gate but at busy airports, sometimes it is not always possible to do it exactly how we would want to always do it," he said.

Federal Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes says it is tragic that Fearnley was refused permission by Jetstar to use his own wheelchair.

"I would have to say that it is tragic to think that an Australian such as Kurt Fearnley, who in recognition of the war service of many other Australians, came back from crawling the Kokoda Track ... and had to experience disrespect and poor treatment when he arrived in an Australian airport.

"He was given the choice of sitting in a wheelchair which he couldn't use or control for an hour-and-a-half or crawling to a plane by himself and in this day and age, in modern Australia, this just should not occur."