THE Indonesian government says the easing of visa regulations for a number of Asian countries is not a "blank cheque" for asylum seekers heading to Australia.

Indonesia - the main transit point for asylum seekers that travel by boat to Australia - is set to relax visa rules for people from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, while similar changes for Pakistan and Afghanistan are awaiting final approval.

People from Afghanistan made up the largest cohort of asylum seekers intercepted in Australian waters in 2011, while Sri Lankan and Pakistani nationals were the fifth and sixth largest groups.

But Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said today that whatever visa relaxation process was being considered, Indonesian authorities would still carry out thorough checks on applicants.

"The fact that there may be some possibility or consideration of the relaxation of visa regulation does not suggest as if it will be a blank cheque and completely visa-free arrangement," Dr Natalegawa said in Jakarta after delivering a briefing on Indonesia's foreign policy outlook.

The move to ease the visa rules for the four countries, previously on Indonesia's "red list" of nations whose citizens could pose security risks, also comes after as many as 200 asylum seekers drowned last month when their vessel sank off the coast of Java while bound for Christmas Island.

However, many of those who survived the sinking, including a number of Afghan men, reported after being rescued that they had arrived in Indonesia with legal visas, before paying a people-smuggling syndicate for their passage to Australia.

Dr Natalegawa said the best way of preventing asylum seekers from making the perilous crossing to Australia was by disrupting the activities of people-smuggling syndicates.

"People smuggling will occur with or without such arrangements and what we need to be doing is really disrupting the networks that have been involved in people smuggling," he said.

The comments follow an admission from the chief of immigration with Indonesia's Law and Human Rights Ministry, Bambang Irawan, that the new visa rules could trigger a fresh wave of boat-people traffic to Australia.

"There's the potential for the new policy to lure more boat people heading to Australia," Irawan said earlier this week.