The continuing human smuggling cases require efforts coming from Australia and its regional neighbors to finally put an end to such unfortunate occurrences that already killed many would-be immigrants.

This according to Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare following the latest incident of a shipwreck that originated in Java, Indonesia and failed to reach Christmas Island on Saturday and possibly killed more than 200 people, authorities said.

Media reports indicated that human smugglers based in Indonesia filled up the ill-fated boat with 250 people, well beyond its reported 100-person capacity, mostly coming from Afghanistan and Iran.

What transpired, Clare said, bared the daunting reality that "people-smugglers act with a callous disregard for human life."

And the most effective way of dealing with the problem, Clare stressed, is for countries in the region to recognise that "this is a regional problem and it requires a regional solution."

Clare revealed too that as he spoke, Australian and Indonesian police officials have launched a joint investigation that hopefully shed more light on the operations of human-smuggling syndicates preying on asylum-seekers aiming to reach the Australian shores by any means.

"The only way to tackle this effectively (is) if you've got police forces in Australia and in Indonesia, police forces across the region working very closely together," the Australian official was reported by ABC as saying.

Initial findings pointed to reputed Afghan underground figures as likely 'coordinators' of the latest batch of boat people that met tragedy while trying to make their way to Australia.

The Australian said that known Afghan smugglers facilitated for the dangerous journey that was met by stormy weathers on Saturday, thus sinking the boat with only 33 survivors rescued so far.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard had earlier attempted to address the issue by forging a deal with Malaysia that allows for the processing of boat people in the Asian nation in exchange for opening Australia's door to some 4000 registered refuges that Kuala Lumpur will send.

That agreement, however, was dumped by the Australian High Court, citing considerable hazard for the asylum seekers.

The High Court decision, according to Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, would only embolden human smugglers to ramp up their illegal activities.

"We expect people attempting to come here to increase unless we have offshore processing in place. That underlines why we have worked so hard to have offshore processing," Bowen was quoted by Agence France Presse as saying.