Australia will not introduce the extra airport security steps adopted in Britain and the US in wake of the alleged London bomb plot such as banning liquids and gels on flights.

Federal Cabinet's national security committee had been considering the measures after a plan to blow up 10 trans-Atlantic jetliners using liquid explosives hidden in drink bottles was revealed earlier this month.

But the Government has concluded that the terrorist threat is lower in Australia than Britain and that security is also better here, Fairfax newspapers said today.

"The national security committee dealt with the issue last week," a spokeswoman for Transport Minister Warren Truss was quoted as saying. "We had been doing a review of the security regime and nothing has come out of that."

The Government and its security agencies learned last week the hydrogen peroxide-based formula said to be planned as a liquid explosive would have been detected by devices used at Australian airports.

However, a program of random and continuous swabs for explosive traces would continue but would not be compulsory.