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The research, sponsored by Dell and conducted by the Ponemon Institute, claims 1,200 laptops are left at Los Angeles International Airport alone, every single week.

The astounding figures were generated from "field research at 106 major airports in 46 states to determine the frequency of lost or missing laptops or notebooks at their locations," not direct reports of missing laptops, which it's often claimed are undereported to spare companies from the embarrassment of admitting corporate

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data loss.

The report claims that, on average, large US airports collect 286 lost laptops per week, and that almost 70% of those are not reclaimed.

"As a result, there are potentially millions of files containing sensitive or confidential data that may be accessible to a large number of airport employees and contractors," the report states.

Ironically, 40% of the lost laptops are left at the security checkpoints. The departure gate (23%), toilets (9%) and restaurants (7%) are other places worth hanging around if you fancy picking up a free PC.

Rushing to make a flight, carrying too many items or fretting over a flight delay are the most common reasons attributed to leaving the laptop behind. And perhaps more worryingly for the terror police - and IT managers - over half of travellers say they have left their luggage and laptop under the watchful eye of a fellow passenger.

All the more disturbing, is that almost half of those laptops have confidential business data stored on them, with 14% even having intellectual property tucked on the hard disk.