The Project's Waleed Aly recounts his "horrific" experience at the airport.

Waleed Aly has shared details of a “horrific” incident where he was detained and searched at the airport while trying to leave Israel.

The Project host told his experience after the show aired a segment about the number of strip searches performed by NSW Police, which more than doubled from 2016 to 2017.

In the first five months of 2018, 735 strip searches were recorded.

An inquiry from the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission claimed children as young as 11 have been strip searched.

The Project panel interviewed activist Rachel Evans about her experience being strip-searched, which led Aly to say he could relate to her trauma.

“It’s very hard to understand what it’s like because we don’t experience strip searches very much. I’ve only experienced it once, and it wasn’t here, it was overseas,” he said.

“I was trying to leave Israel and as I was leaving they just picked me out and just took me aside and it just went for hours, basically.”

Aly, who did not specify when this took place, said his experience didn’t go as far as Evans’ “but I did have to undo my jeans and all sorts of stuff”.

“The thing about it is you don’t know where it’s going to end and they explain nothing.

“So you’re just in this situation, you don’t know why, the power imbalance is horrific and you have no idea where it’s going.

“I’ve never left a situation more shaken or angry than that particular thing. We don’t need more of that.”

Evans shared her story of being strip searched during a protest about asylum seekers on Manus Island.

She was ordered into a paddy wagon and said police gave no justification for the search.

She called her experience “really scary and really intimidating”.