Police have arrested three Malaysia Airlines staff members over an incident in which wires in an Australia-bound aircraft were found to have been cut shortly before take-off, a report said today.

The suspects, aged between 28 and 44, were engineering section staff involved with maintenance, Selangor state police crime chief Abu Bakar Mustafa was quoted as saying by the Malay-language Utusan Malaysia .

The Airbus A-330 was due to leave for Perth on Oct 2 when engineers alerted by a malfunction signal found at least seven bundles of wires cut, including those under an instrument panel in the cockpit.

Police are continuing investigations and are not ruling out more arrests, Abu Bakar said.

"The case is still far from solved, investigations will still be carried out. It's likely we will arrest more people to assist in investigations," he said.

An airline spokesman said shortly after the incident that it was an act of vandalism and not sabotage. - AFP