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To safeguard these and other underwater sites, the federal government should ratify a United Nations convention, the parliamentary treaties committee urged in a new report.
Australia has 8000 shipwreck and submerged aircraft sites, with about 500,000 protected artefacts recovered from those sites.
But experts told the committee advances in technology are making underwater sites more vulnerable than ever.
The wrecks of Australian, British, Dutch and Japanese warships from World War II have been pillaged by scrap metal hunters over past years.
There are also concerns about the state of the wreck of Australia’s first submarine, the AE1, which sank at the start of World War I in 1914 but was not found until 2018.
Parts made of valuable metals, such as propellers, can be sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The MPs urged the federal government to ratify the UN convention on the protection of underwater cultural heritage.
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It would increase safeguards for heritage that has been submerged for at least 100 years.
Committee chair and Labor MP Josh Wilson said Australia had helped draft the UN convention but should now take a step further.
“Ratification would allow more scope for Australia to assist other state parties in the preservation of Australian UCH outside our own waters, like warships sunk in battle,” he said.
“Australia would also be able to lead by example and encourage other states in the Asia-Pacific to become state parties.”
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Academics had told MPs that during the past 20,000 years, two million square kilometres of Australia’s land mass had been submerged.
“This means that many historic Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sites – dating back thousands of years – lie underwater and can be protected, preserved or studied,” Wilson said.
