Senior navy officers and customs officials face possible disciplinary action over six incursions into Indonesian waters while turning back asylum-seeker boats under the government's border protection regime.

A brief, unclassified report into the territorial breaches released on Wednesday found there were mistakes made by sailors on board the navy and customs ships and that these were compounded by a lack of oversight from staff in the headquarters of the Operation Sovereign Borders taskforce.

The incursions happened because personnel had not properly calculated where the 12-nautical-mile boundary to Indonesian territory lay. The report offered no explanation as to what the ships were doing when they inadvertently entered Indonesian waters, but Fairfax Media understands they happened while asylum-seeker boats were being turned back.

It pointedly noted that the navy commanding officers of the ships involved ''had received the requisite professional training and experience to be aware of the operational implications'' knowing precisely where the limit lay.