Canadian officials have launched a probe after a man in a wheelchair said he was forced to drag himself out of an Air Canada plane because he was not offered assistance.

Rodney and Deanna Hodgins, a Canadian couple, said the incident happened on a flight from Vancouver to Las Vegas in August.

She said her husband, who has spastic cerebral palsy and who uses a motorised wheelchair, was not offered any help by Air Canada crew to get off the plane.

She said that eight cleaning crew members, two flight attendants, and the captain and co-captain watched as she tried to help her husband exit the plane.

"I was so mad at watching him fight to drag his uncooperative body so slowly and painfully," she said, adding that he suffered muscle spasms as he tried to make his way toward the cockpit.

Accessibility advocates have long called for better rules to ease travel for people who require wheelchairs or other assistance, including allowing them to sit on their own chair during the flight.

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