About 7,000 Singapore passports have been reported lost or stolen each year over the last five years, said Senior Minister of State for Home Affairs Masagos Zulkifli in Parliament on Monday.

And an average of about 350 travellers yearly across all the checkpoints in Singapore have been found to be holding forged or tampered travel documents, or have presented documents that did not belong to them.

He was responding to questions from five MPs who had tabled questions on passport infringements, in light of reports that two passengers on board missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 had used stolen passports.

When a report on a passport being lost or stolen is received, said Mr Masagos, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore (ICA) will immediately cancel the passport, update its database and convey the relevant information to Interpol.

ICA, he added, works with global partners to exchange information on lost and stolen travel documents to deter cases of passport infringements.

Since 2008, the authority has also been using Interpol's database as part of its passport documentation process. The database contains over 40 million travel documents that have been reported stolen or lost by 167 countries.

"Singapore is one of several Interpol member states that cross-check travellers' passports against this database, accessing it about 29 million times a year, to determine if a passport presented had been reported lost or stolen," said Mr Masagos.