Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds have laid out the processes the government will take to respond to the report from the Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force into alleged war crimes committed by SAS soldiers in Afghanistan.

International security expert at the Australian National University John Blaxland said it was important and appropriate that the government seemed to be taking a measured approach to the report.

"Special forces aren't a 'nice to have', they're a 'must have' for a nation like Australia, so working out how to tease apart the poisoned threads of the fabric without destroying the material is a delicate operation," he said.

"The media reports have already made it pretty compellingly clear that there's something rotten at the core, and that has be expunged carefully."

Professor Blaxland backed the panel of former inspector general of intelligence and security Vivienne Thom, former secretary of the Attorney-General's Department Robert Cornall and University of Tasmania Vice Chancellor Rufus Black.

"They're well-placed to exercise the right level of judgement with insight into the way operational capabilities function and how important they are to Australian national security writ large."

READ MORE:

Disbanding the Special Air Service Regiment was not the answer to dealing with the cultural issues, Professor Blaxland said, warning Australia must learn the lesson from similar experiences in Canada.

Following the murder of two Somali men by members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment in 1993, the unit was disbanded, but in later years the defence force there made the decision to re-build the capability.

"Most people have no idea how significant the relationships maintained by special forces are in the neighbourhood, to our ability to engage constructively, to respond to crises, to lend a hand, a trusted hand to regional partners in times if crisis, that are facilitated by the discreet behind-the-scenes but widespread role of special forces engagement in the region," Professor Blaxland said.

Director of Defence, Strategy and National Security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute Michael Shoebridge said the announcement from the Prime Minister showed the government was going to limit its response to prosecutions, although they were also likely.

"The Prime Minister's twin goals of ensuring the trust that Australians and the wider international community have in the ADF and in having justice done through our independent and open legal system make sense," he said.

"A factor relevant to what happens from here is time. The justice process needs to take account of the maxim 'justice delayed is justice denied'.

"So, while proceeding forensically and carefully, it is in everyone's interests to begin and resolve any criminal cases that result from these lengthy inquiries without undue delay."