Broadcaster Alan Jones was met with an online backlash after suggesting on national television that ''left-wing radical students'' were behind the Boston Marathon bombings and that Australia should reconsider its intake of foreign university students in response.

In a segment on Channel Seven's Sunrise on Wednesday, the controversial 2GB host said Boston was home to prestigious institutions such as Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and suggested that students could be the culprits.

That is despite US authorities saying they do not have any suspects in the case and they do not know who is responsible for the blasts. No organisation has claimed responsibility for the attack that killed three people and injured more than 175.

''I wouldn't be surprised if this was a conspiracy amongst students, left-wing radical students in Boston, and I think we have to think also very seriously here about our own student numbers,'' Jones said on Sunrise.