Officials said a review was underway to determine how the boat evaded interception by Indonesian and then Australian patrols to almost become the first vessel to land asylum seekers in the country since 2001.

The fishing boat, carrying men, women and eight children apparently from an extended family, was stopped Tuesday within a few kilometers (miles) of the northwestern coastal town of Port Hedland.

Under Australia's policy of refusing entry to uninvited refugees, the boatpeople were kept offshore overnight and were being transferred Wednesday to a navy frigate that will take them to Christmas Island, 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) from the mainland near Indonesia, officials said.

It was the first time since the conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard toughened Australia's immigration laws in late 2001 that a boatload of asylum seekers had come so close to the country.

In the so-called "Pacific solution" to illegal immigration, the government built detention centers for asylum seekers on Christmas Island and in distant Pacific states, a practice condemned by human rights groups and the United Nations.

It also gave Christmas Island, formerly the main destination for refugees trying to reach Australian territory, an extra-territorial status so boatpeople landing there could not claim asylum.

The Vietnamese boat was the third to attempt the trip to Australia in the past three months. The two other vessels were forced abandoned the voyage in Indonesian waters when they broke down.

Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock insisted the latest incident did not signal the start of a new wave of boatpeople like the thousands who arrived prior to the 2001 crack-down, many in organized people-smuggling operations.

He also rebuffed suggestions Indonesia was to blame for failing to intercept the boatpeople. Jakarta signed an agreement in 1999 to help prevent refugees from reaching Australia but has since made ambiguous statements on the issue.

"I think it has to be seen as an isolated incident and certainly not a lack of cooperation on Indonesia's part," he said.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) reported that the Vietnamese boat landed in mid-June on a remote Indonesian island off west Java, where it was allegedly resupplied with food and fuel by local officials.

The broadcaster quoted officials with the International Organization of Migration (IOM) saying they had sent officers along with Indonesian immigration officials to the island Saturday to interview the Vietnamese, but the boat had just left.

Australian officials said they could not confirm that the boat was the same one that landed in Indonesia, raising the possibility that a second vessel carrying asylum seekers could be in the region.

The decision to send the Vietnamese to Christmas Island, a remote Indian Ocean outpost with a population of 1,500, was slammed by opponents of the Pacific solution.

"It is an enclave of Australia where all rights are suspended," said Senator Bob Brown, leader of the Greens party, describing the Christmas Island detention center as a concentration camp.

"One of the definitions of a concentration camp is having no access to laws, including agreed international laws, and no access to the community you are coming to or the community you are coming from."

WAR.WIRE