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Fugitive Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been issued with a new Australian passport after lengthy negotiations over whether he was subject to an arrest warrant for a "serious foreign offence", The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade official confirmed in a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday that Mr Assange's 2018 application for a new passport had been accepted. Consular and Crisis Management Division first assistant secretary Andrew Todd said, "Mr Assange does have an Australian passport".

The Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed Mr Assange received his new Australian passport in September 2018. The passport has gone unreported until now.

It's an important development for Mr Assange amid reports the Ecuadorian government, which has housed him in its London embassy since 2012 after Swedish authorities requested his extradition as a suspect in a rape case, may be preparing to end his political asylum.

Swedish prosecutors announced in 2017 that they had closed the rape investigation.

The new passport makes it possible for Mr Assange to return to Australia. He has been without a passport after his previous one expired several years ago.

Australian barrister and adviser to Mr Assange, Greg Barns, said credit was owed to Australia's former foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop, who he said had gone to great lengths to ensure Mr Assange's rights as an Australian citizen were upheld by being granted a passport.