Bangkok: Australia has secretly flown four refugees slated to be resettled in Cambodia from the tiny Pacific island of Nauru to Darwin from where they will be flown to Phnom Penh.

But Cambodian officials who are insisting on vetting the refugees before approving their arrival have not been told about the move.

The tiny Pacific island of Nauru, which houses asylum-seekers who were bound for Australia. Credit:Angela Wylie

"We don't have any official information about this," Kerm Sarin of the Ministry of Interior's Refugee Department told the Phnom Penh Post, adding that a government delegation that visited Nauru in April to assess the refugees' applications had not yet submitted their report to the government.