An abusive father who threatened to kill his wife and child and assaulted them has won the right to prevent his victims from leaving the country.

The jailed ex-husband was allowed to place his daughter, aged under 10, on a no-fly list because no checks were made of his criminal record.

Neither the woman nor the man who beat her can be named for legal reasons.

But a dangerous loophole has left her in fear and furious.

After a decade of abuse, the mother suffered broken ribs at the hands of her violent ex-husband. He also assaulted the couple's young daughter.

In March, he was jailed for just four months over the attacks and was due for release last weekend. His victims wanted to leave Australia before he was freed but while in prison he applied to have his daughter barred from leaving the country.

Nowhere on his application form did he have to declare he was convicted of attacking his child.

He was successful because an interim no-fly order is always automatically issued without any background checks or a court hearing.

If the woman and her daughter now try to flee, the mother faces three years in prison.

The man could have been walking the streets this week but police laid new charges against him for stalking his ex-wife.

He tried to get bail but prosecutors won. He is still behind bars.

The bungle over the flight ban is intensified because no government body is accepting responsibility for the handling of airport watch lists.

The Australian Federal Police says it polices them but approving them is a job for the courts.

The court system says it's a matter for the department of Attorney-General George Brandis, but the department disputes that, handballing it back to the AFP.

"The Attorney-General will not comment on individual cases for privacy reasons," the office of the Department of the Attorney General said in a statement.

The victim was not immediately notified of the watch list application and the interim order that was granted in May.

Its presence was only discovered when police listened to more than 35 hours of phone calls the violent former partner made from behind prison walls.

The frightened mother is hoping to have the no-fly order overturned at a hearing later next month.