Australia has protested what it describes as an unsafe and unprofessional interaction over the South China Sea where a Chinese fighter is accused of releasing flares that endangered an Australian military surveillance plane.

Australia has raised concerns with China over what it said on Thursday were "unsafe and unprofessional" actions by a Chinese fighter jet towards an Australian maritime patrol in the South China Sea two days earlier,

China in turn accused the Australian plane of "deliberately" intruding into airspace over the disputed Paracel Islands,