Car owners could be forced to pay more for vehicle registration as a direct result of Australia's rapidly vanishing capacity to refine crude oil.

The warning, made in a state government submission to a Senate inquiry into the nation's fuel security, is that the dwindling output from local refineries will mean that bitumen for road making, a by-product of oil refining, will have to be 100 per cent imported.

That will increase the cost of building roads but likely be recouped through higher rego costs, according to the Queensland government's submission to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee.

The committee established the inquiry, Australia's transport energy resilience and sustainability, after complaints from several bodies, including the NRMA and the Australian Automobile Association, that the country was vulnerable to fuel supply shocks.

Australia now imports 91 per cent of its petrol and diesel – up from 60 per cent in 2000. The Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics calculates that Australia has just 12 days of diesel stock.