Australia's turning back of at least one asylum-seeker boat to Indonesia has sparked political anger in Jakarta, with senior politicians warning it could further damage the already fraught relationship.

The anger came as video emerged of Royal Australian Navy personnel boarding an asylum-seeker boat whose passengers claim they were intercepted near Darwin and towed back to Indonesia over a period of six days.

And the Australian customs ship the Ocean Protector prepared to leave Singapore, understood to be carrying 10 large lifeboats that will be used to send asylum seekers back to Indonesia if their own boats are unseaworthy.

Mahfudz Siddiq, head of the Indonesian parliament's foreign affairs committee, demanded Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop sit down with her Indonesian counterpart Marty Natalegawa ''as soon as possible'' to explain.