A hybrid stability checking method is proposed to verify the establishment of synchronization between two hyperchaotic systems. During the design stage of a synchronization scheme for chaotic fractional-order systems, a problem is sometimes encountered. In order to ensure the stability of the error signal between two fractional-order systems, the arguments of all eigenvalues of the Jacobian matrix of the erroneous system should be within a region defined in Matignon's theorem. Sometimes, the arguments depend on the state variables of the driving system, which makes it difficult to prove the stability. We propose a new and efficient hybrid method to verify the stability in this situation. The passivity-based control scheme for synchronization of two hyperchaotic fractional-order Chen-Lee systems is provided as an example. Theoretical analysis of the proposed method is validated by numerical simulation in time domain and examined in frequency domain via electronic circuits. © 2014 Seng-Kin Lao et al.