Australian authorities work within the law to stop asylum-seeker boats, Prime Minister Tony Abbott insisted Tuesday after reports officials have made cash payments to members of people-smuggling rings for years.

The government has refused to deny reports that six Indonesian crew members were paid $US5,000 each to return an asylum-seeker vessel to Indonesia in late May, saying no comment will be made on operational issues.

Indonesia's vice president warned Monday that paying people-smugglers would amount to "bribery" after Australia was accused of handing out money to turn back a boatload of asylum-seekers.

Allegations that the captain and five crew of a boat, carrying migrants from Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, were each paid US$5,000 by an Australian immigration official to turn back to Indonesia were made to police on Rote island in the country's east last week.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo insisted Saturday that the death penalty was "positive" for his country after the execution of seven foreign drug convicts by firing squad last month sparked international outrage.

Jakarta put to death two Australians, a Brazilian, and four Nigerians on a prison island, along with one Indonesian, despite worldwide calls for them to be spared and heartrending pleas from their families.

A district in Indonesia's Aceh has passed legislation banning unmarried men and women from riding together on motorbikes, a lawmaker said Monday, the latest new Islamic regulation in the conservative province.

Members of parliament in North Aceh district last week approved the regulation, which will come into effect in a year, said lawmaker Fauzan Hamzah, adding that authorities were making "efforts to implement sharia law fully".

Australia urged Indonesia Monday to ensure the trials of two men sentenced to death on drugs charges were corruption free before their executions go ahead, as family members readied to say their last goodbyes.

"Bali Nine" drug traffickers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan could face the firing squad within days, along with others from Brazil, Nigeria, the Philippines and an Indonesian prisoner.

Two Australian drug traffickers and a Filipino woman were on Saturday given official notification by Indonesia that they will be executed, but with no given date, reports and a lawyer said.

They include Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, ringleaders of the "Bali Nine" heroin trafficking gang, and mother-of-two Mary Jane Veloso.

Just hours after Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sat down for his first substantial talks with China's Xi Jinping, two of his cabinet ministers Thursday visited the war shrine that Beijing sees as a symbol of Tokyo's violent past.

The visits by Eriko Yamatani and Haruko Arimura have the potential to muddy diplomatic waters that were starting to clear after their nationalist boss sat down with the Chinese president on the sidelines of a regional summit in Jakarta.

An Indonesian fighter jet caught fire just before take-off on Thursday, prompting the pilot to jump to safety as flames and thick smoke engulfed the plane, officials said. 

The pilot escaped with minor injuries and is now being treated in hospital after leaping from the blazing F-16 aircraft, which was about to take off from an airbase in the capital Jakarta.

An Indonesian court will rule Monday on the appeals of two Australian drug smugglers facing execution, a judge said, as their lawyers insisted they had done their best to save the men. 

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the ringleaders of the so-called "Bali Nine" trafficking gang, were sentenced to death in 2006 for trying to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia. 

An Indonesian minister has warned a "human tsunami" of asylum-seekers could be unleashed on Australia in retaliation if Canberra keeps pressing for clemency for two Australian drug smugglers on death row, as ties between the neighbors fray.

Several foreigners are due to be executed for drug-related crimes with Australia among countries pleading with Indonesian President Joko Widodo to show mercy to their citizens.