KUALA LUMPUR: Australia has positioned itself near the centre of the White House's plans to take down the brutal Islamic State terrorist organisation currently cutting a bloody swath through northern Iraq and Syria.

The move comes as Australia also flags an intention to revisit the site of the downed Malaysia Airlines MH17 along with Malaysian investigators, raising the prospect of further confrontation with Russian-backed separatist rebels fighting the Ukrainian government.

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron with Julie Bishop at the start of the NATO summit near Newport in Wales. Credit:Reuters

While Prime Minister Tony Abbott has repeated his statement of a few days ago that there had still been no "specific" request from the Obama administration for direct Australian military participation in an all-out assault on the Islamic State (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), military-to-military planning is under way.

In England for a NATO meeting, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop stepped up Canberra's sabre-rattling rhetoric, stating Australia is determined to meet the threat "head-on".