A planned police anti-graffiti operation has resulted in a popular street mural by a high profile Perth artist being mistakenly painted over.

Internationally recognised artist Stormie Mills painted the mural on the side wall of a building he owns in Northbridge three years ago.

The entire wall was covered in brown paint by City of Vincent council workers, a move that Mayor John Carey described as an "embarrassing stuff up".

"It appears that the police were planning some sort of sting operation on graffiti and they had provided the council with a form to say they had the authorisation of the owner to paint the wall," Mr Carey said.

"They sent that through to the council and an admin person processed it, and it has been painted on behalf of the police for this operation."

Street artist Stormie Mills painting a mural on a Perth wall as part of the Public urban art festival, April 2014

Mr Carey said the police contacted the owner of a neighbouring vacant block instead of the building owner, and he planned to put in place measures to ensure the council is not involved in future bungles.

"It completely goes against the philosophy of the City of Vincent," he said.

"We were the biggest council sponsor of the recent public street art festival. We have our own wall mural art program and we have been encouraging residents to get artists to do urban art in all our laneways.

"I've already spoken to Stormie and apologised. He knows where the council stands on this.

"The whole situation is Monty Pythonesque."

Artist plans a new mural

Police say this photograph of the wall taken on 6 May 2014 shows significant graffiti on the wall. ( Supplied: WA Police )

Stormie Mills said he was upset that the mural had been covered over and said he plans to paint another.

He told 720 Mornings he was also unhappy that the wall was used as part of a police anti-graffiti operation.

"It was the WA police who were the instigators of all this and they wanted to set that wall up to trap young people that were painting art work there," Mr Mills said.

"I am so totally against that idea.

"There has been no graffiti on that wall for the past 12 months. I've made no complaints about it and it is my wall."

Superintendent Peter De La Motte said the wall was located on a boundary and police considered the owner of the block to have an interest in the wall.

"It was a prolific graffiti site," Superintendent De La Motte said.