Australia has piled pressure on the World Health Organisation after it backed the reopening of China's wet markets despite them being the likely origin of COVID-19.

The WHO last week claimed China's wet markets could be made to sell safe food with increased hygiene practices and refused to support their closure as they are an important source of food and income.

But Prime Minister Scott Morrison spoke out on Monday to demand transparency in understanding the origin of the disease and protection from the global threat of China's notorious open marketplaces.

'Australia and the world will be looking to organisations like the WHO to ensure lessons are learned from the devastating coronavirus outbreak,' Mr Morrison told The Australian.

Australia has pressured the World Health Organisation's decision to allow the reopening of wet markets in China despite strong evidence they were the origin of the coronavirus

Prime Minister Scott Morrison demanded transparency from the organisation to prevent another global scale outbreak from occurring in the future

'There must be transparency in understanding how it began in Wuhan and how it was transmitted. We also need to fully understand and protect against the global health threat posed by places like wet markets.'

While there has been no consensus reached on the origins of the virus, studies have indicated that the epicenter of the virus may have been Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, a wet market in the city where the coronavirus is thought to have originated.

COVID-19, which has infected 1,872,000 people and killed 116,000, is one of a family of coronaviruses commonly found in bats.

A working theory is that the virus was passed from bats through another mammal, possibly pangolins - the most trafficked animal in the world for their meat and scales believed by some to have medicinal properties - before infecting humans.

The public concern was great enough that the Chinese government banned the sale and consumption of wild animals, but with Wuhan's reopening vendors have started to return to the city's market stalls.

The WHO claimed China's wet markets could become safe spaces to buy and sell food by increasing hygiene procedures. Pictured: a vendor chops dog meat on the ground at a market in Guangxi Povince

Mr Morrison's comments came after he called wet markets a 'real and significant problem wherever they exist' in an interview with Alan Jones in early April.

'This virus started in China and went round the world. And that's that's how it started. We all know that,' Mr Morrison said.

'And these wet markets can be a real problem when it comes to what can occur in those markets. And I think from a world health point of view, this is something the World Health Organisation should do something about.'

Both sides of Australian politics have been critical of the WHO's advice, and Labor MP Peter Khalil said wet markets should be closed unless they can be proven safe.

'Unless they can demonstrate that the regulations, the health and safety measures, are so strict that they can completely cut off the risk factors, they're going to have to shut them down,' he said.

'It's happened with SARS. It's happened with avian influenza. It's happened with COVID-19. Next time it might be an even worse virus.'

Shoppers wearing face masks in Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne on Saturday during the coronavirus outbreak

There is strong evidence coronavirus originated from a wet market in Wuhan, with scientists discovering viruses similar to COVID-19 in horseshoe bats and pangolins in wet markets in the region. Pictured: a vendor waits for customers at refrigerator chests in Wuhan in April

Liberal MP Andrew Hastie told Daily Mail Australia the WHO has badly let Australia down in response to the coronavirus crisis.

'The WHO has been glacially slow in its decision-making,' Mr Hastie said.

'When Beijing shut down travel from Hubei to the rest of China on January 23 - but strangely not from Hubei to the rest of the world - why didn't the WHO act decisively then?

'It could've prevented the mass global exportation of COVID-19 then by declaring a pandemic and alerting governments around the world of the danger ahead.

'Closing borders then could've saved lives and a lot of economic hardship.'

Fellow Liberal MP Dave Sharma also criticised the WHO on Wednesday.

He told the ABC: 'I think the WHO's revealed some serious shortcomings, and I think they've revealed themselves to be a politicised organisation.

'They have been too willing to accept Chinese explanations for this virus and the source and the causes.'

He said it was right for the world to respond to China with 'anger and consternation and demand some sort of transparency and accountability in future.'

World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (left) and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands in Beijing on January 28 ahead of their meeting to discuss how to curb the spread of a new pneumonia-causing coronavirus