Police have arrested a 17-year-old suspected terrorist and disrupted a plot to detonate three home-made bombs in Melbourne, Australia.

Australian Federal Police deputy commissioner Mike Phelan said the boy was arrested at his home in the city's upmarket suburb of Greenvale, where the explosive devices were found. The bomb squad destroyed the devices. The teenager, who was not identified for legal reasons, will appear at Melbourne Children's Court tomorrow on terrorism charges. Prime minister Tony Abbott said he had been briefed that the bomb plot had been in a "reasonably advanced state of preparation".