The working group is investigating how many multi-storey Canberra buildings may have potentially combustible cladding panels installed in inappropriate areas.

It has already found up to 10 per cent of panels on the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children will need to be removed.

Chairman and deputy director-general of land strategy and environment, Geoffrey Rutledge, said a desktop audit had also found "a few more properties" that have the cladding, but will need physical inspections to determine if the panels are actually a fire risk.

The polyethylene core panels are only a risk on some buildings if installed in the wrong areas, such as near fire escape routes, but otherwise do meet the nation's building code.

Mr Rutledge said while the audit checked records with the planning directorate and ACT fire and rescue, physical inspections needed specialist fire safety engineers and there was currently a big demand on such contractors.

"It's only a small number of buildings [that need secondary checks], but those external contractors have already been contracted out by larger government agencies, so there's been a surge in demand," he said.

Mr Rutledge said the demand globally for qualified fire engineers, in the wake of London's Grenfell Tower fire, meant the taskforce's work could be months away from being complete.

"I think it's hard to put a deadline on it, I think the risk in Canberra is relatively low compared with other cities, because we have so few high rise buildings, so therefore we'd be relatively untouched.

"But it could be some time before we get to total resolution."

That surge in demand also extends to suitable replacement panels, he said, and the government would have to wait until the panels, and contractors to install them, were available before the hospital cladding could be replaced.

"It's going to be a tough market, it's a high priority for government, but it may take some time," he said.

"There's no immediate risk, but we know now that removing the panels could open the building up to other problems like potential water leakage, so we really need to do all that work together."

Mr Rutledge said he was also waiting on the federal government to confirm if any Commonwealth-owned buildings in the capital need rectification works, but there had been 'verbal advice' no such buildings had yet been identified.

The government has also been working with private property owners and developers, in an effort to identify any privately-owned property that may need work done.

Mr Rutledge said that he had heard anecdotally that "a number of property owners are doing secondary checks", but the government was working together well with industry.

He said the government would wait to see how industry responded, before considering any need to put formal requirements in place to ensure private buildings were thoroughly checked.

Fire Protection Association of Australia deputy chief executive Matthew Wright said the demand was due to governments waiting to act until after the Grenfell Tower fire, despite the industry raising issues in Australia since the 2014 Lacrosse fire in Melbourne.

He also said the national building code had already effectively banned the use of such panels in the wrong applications, and the problem actually came down to enforcement of the code at the state and territory level.

Mr Wright also said that if governments were undertaking 'taskforces' on the cladding issue, it was also an optimum time for them to also check existing fire safety measures were up to date.

But Mr Rutledge said that as Canberra was a small jurisdiction with fewer high rise buildings, the ACT was had more opportunity for stronger regulatory controls than other states and territories.