A New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) survey has found 98.94% of international air passengers who pass through checks are not carrying medium or high-risk goods, including materials that may host fruit fly.

The survey involved more than 8,000 passengers passing through the airports of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

The result comes at a time when the country's biosecurity forces are under fierce criticism for not preventing the Psa outbreak that struck New Zealand in late 2010. A recent independent review revealed several shortcomings in the system.

In May a fruit fly detection in Auckland ended up costing the country millions of dollars in enforcing emergency measures, but the impacts if the pest spread could have been much worse.

The recent MPI survey found the overall compliance rate for all risk goods was 95.33%, which is short of its target rate of 98.5%.

MPI director general of verification and systems Roger Smith, said the shortfall was mostly due to low-risk items like airline food packets and dirty shoes getting past biosecurity checks.

"In a number of cases, these items were only slightly contaminated, or were unlikely to have been exposed to biosecurity risk - such as toiletries containing honey," he said.

"There are clearly some areas we can improve on, but it is pleasing to see we are keeping out the goods that are most likely to cause harm to New Zealand."

The compliance rate for medium to high-risk goods was higher at 99.54% for passengers passing through Direct Exit lanes, which allow Australian and New Zealand passport holders who are assessed as low risk to bypass luggage X-ray screening.

"This result also supports the Direct Exit concept. It shows we are making the right decisions about who we clear to leave airports without X-ray screening," said Smith.

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