NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — A Virginia Beach man was the focus of suspicion of human trafficking by Southwest Airlines and Norfolk International Airport police as he returned home early last week.

John Kerrigan was flying with his daughter, 15, and her 16-year-old friend aboard Southwest Flight 4345 from Denver, the final leg of their Oct. 21 trip back from Las Vegas.

The flight lasted about three-and-a-half hours, and when Kerrigan would get up to go to the restroom, the flight attendant was asking the girls some peculiar questions.

“She keeps asking if we’re all right and if we know you,” Kerrigan said his daughter had told him. “And I said it seemed strange.”

Strange turned into disturbing and aggravating once they landed in Norfolk. An airport spokesman confirmed Wednesday that Southwest called airport police during the flight with suspicion of human trafficking, and Kerrigan was their person of interest.

The plane arrived at the gate, but the passengers were told to remain seated, and then three airport officers got on and walked back to the rear row to Kerrigan and the girls.

“[They said], ‘Sir, would you follow us? We’d like to ask you some questions,'” Kerrigan said they told him.

And as he was being led off the plane past all of the other passengers, “I said, ‘this is offensive.’ I did find it very offensive. I mean, I hadn’t done anything wrong,” Kerrigan said.

The officers questioned Kerrigan for about 20 minutes, didn’t detain or charge him, and ultimately let him go. A program by the Department of Homeland Security was the likely spark for the whole affair. The Blue Lightning Initiative outlines what to look for as possible indicators of human trafficking.

Kerrigan agrees with that mission and wants to see human trafficking stop, but it should be done right.

“That was just a horrible way to go about it,” he said. “We all would like for them to catch child traffickers. That’s a worthy goal. But to humiliate somebody?”

A Southwest spokesman said Wednesday afternoon flight crews are trained to recognize the warning signs of human trafficking. He could not comment on specifics of Kerrigan’s case, and said Southwest had no record of his complaint.

10 On Your Side forwarded two complaint confirmation numbers and Southwest said it would work to resolve Kerrigan’s issue.