Fake Hong Kong passports help traffickers fill Australian brothels

Hong Kong's mechanism for checking travel documents has come under renewed scrutiny after it was revealed that local women were being trafficked to Australian brothels on fraudulent passports.

Last month, the Sunday Morning Post reported that a number of Hong Kong women were being kept in slave-like conditions in Sydney brothels. It has since emerged that many of them travelled using false documents.

According to sources close to the women, a fixer in Hong Kong arranges false passports if initial attempts to enter Australia were rebuffed by immigration there.

"It's pretty daring if you ask me, but I know of four incidents when this has occurred. The women get refused entry [to Australia], fly back to Hong Kong, change their passports and then successfully enter" Australia, said a relative of one of the women, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

It happens under the noses of the Australian authorities, said Chris Seage, of the advocacy group Brothel Busters.

The news comes just weeks after Interpol highlighted a "glaring gap" in aviation security because fewer than 10 countries systematically use its database to verify the authenticity of travel documents.