Australia's Justice Minister Michael Keenan has shared notes with his French counterpart on combating the spread of extremist ideology in prisons as the two nations ramp up co-operation on counter-terror measures.
Mr Keenan has been visiting Paris, Berlin and London to strengthen ties with European partners to combat the threat of attacks by Islamic State and other terror groups.
He met on Thursday with French Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas in Paris where they agreed to share lessons from their nations' measures to prevent inmates taking up extreme ideologies and rehabilitate terror offenders.
"You don't want them going into prison either first of all to become more radicalised, getting a network of other radicalised prisoners and, of course, affecting others in the prison system with that violent ideology," he told AAP in London on Friday.
Mr Keenan, who is also minister assisting the prime minister for counter terrorism, said Australia had trained 3500 prison officers to recognise signs of radicalisation and had implemented programs to counter violent extremism.
Mr Urvoas outlined the French government's pilot prison deradicalisation program involving counselling and group therapy sessions to rehabilitate terrorist offenders and people suspected of being radicalised.
Mr Keenan said prison radicalisation posed a real threat to Australians.
"Prisons can be a breeding ground for escalating criminality, with vulnerable prisoners exposed to serious organised crime figures and the evolving threat of terrorist influences," he said.
"We saw this in Paris last year, with two of the three gunmen who carried out the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine first meeting in prison.
"Closer to home our Indonesian colleagues have also highlighted their concerns about the influence of radicalised prison inmates," the minister said.
He said Australia's counter-terror co-operation with France and Germany had strengthened significantly over the past 18 months in the face of a higher terror threat.
The minister said his European tour had reinforced to him that Australia over that period had "the most sure-footed response" to the terror threat, "second to none anywhere in the world", with Europe still mulling measures Australia had already introduced.
"We've stopped six attacks in Australia in that time, really gruesome stuff if we hadn't stopped it."
But the terror threat remained very high, with Australia particularly concerned about Islamic-State-inspired "lone-wolf" attacks, Mr Keenan said.
"We say an attack in Australia is probable, which means an attack can occur at any time and that's the sad reality."
