Two trainers have suffered serious electric shocks and the majority of officers have failed the four-day "active shooter" training course in its first three weeks, Fairfax Media has learned.

Police officers and law enforcement experts had been calling for "active shooter" training since last year, saying that frontline police needed to be better equipped to deal with terrorist shootings like the attack on the Bataclan theatre in Paris on Friday.

Overseas experience has shown that most "active shooter" incidents last seven to 10 minutes and first responders are usually "on the beat" officers.

"The [Tactical Operations Unit] won't even be out of the car park in seven to 10 minutes," Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch told News Corp in October last year.

A training program was due to start earlier this year, but was delayed, partly due to difficulty finding a venue.

A pilot started three weeks ago but was again derailed due to a faulty power-point that gave two trainers an electric shock when they plugged their laptops in.

A police source has told Fairfax Media that 57 per cent of officers have failed the course, possibly because the training is not structured well.

A NSW Police spokesman said the Active Armed Offender training program, will be "continually reviewed to allow for adjustments to be made to maximise the outcomes for police".

"The program has been designed specifically to equip officers with the additional skills, training and resources they need when first on scene at a counter-terrorism or related incident," the spokesman said.

"All NSW Police officers will undergo the training, which has been developed from state-of-the-art international guidelines and will take place at both regional and metropolitan locations."

Counter-terrorism experts said the Paris attacks have further highlighted the need to urgently reassess police protocol and skills for dealing with active shooter and hostage situations.

In the most deadly of the six attacks, three jihadists opened fire on concert-goers at the Bataclan for about 10 minutes.

Nick O'Brien, former head of international terrorism with New Scotland Yard, said the traditional methods of negotiating and containing don't work with terrorists, whose objectives are to inflict as much harm as quickly as possible.

"The reality is often that they want to die because they think they're going to heaven so you're dealing with something completely different than a normal siege or hostage situation," said Mr O'Brien, head of Charles Sturt University's Australian Graduate School of Policing. "You have to be willing to intervene much quicker."

Clarke Jones, co-director of the Australian Intervention Support Hub at the Australian National University, said police would be under pressure to use snipers much quicker.

"Unfortunately police are in a difficult position where they have to kill the terrorist as quickly as they can," he said.

In a submission before the state election in March, the Police Association of NSW lobbied heavily for active shooter training and  rifles in all police cars to allow officers to take down a target from further away than their Glock pistols allow.