An Australian television crew accused of aiding a mother in the botched kidnapping of her two children in Lebanon arrived home on Thursday, amid reports of a multimillion dollar deal struck with the father to drop abduction charges.

Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner and the Channel Nine team were arrested and charged last week after Faulkner's son and daughter were snatched in broad daylight on a Beirut street.

But they were released on bail on Wednesday after the father, Ali al-Amin, decided not to pursue the charges in court.

Bailed star reporter Tara Brown led her producer Stephen Rice, cameraman Ben Williamson and sound recordist David Ballment on to the earliest flight out of Beirut after their release from custody.

The Nine team arrived in Sydney on Thursday, touching down about 10 pm (local time) on an Emirates flight from Dubai.

They were mobbed by a large media scrum as they left the airport via a private exit, and were whisked off in waiting black vans.

"I'm just so glad to be home," Brown said as she was escorted by Rice to a van.

Ballment added that he was looking forward to "a shower and seeing my wife".

Faulkner, however, remains in Beirut for a custody hearing with her estranged husband.

It was a disastrous end to the news story the crew had planned.

Deal struck  

Faulkner's lawyer Ghassan Mughabghab earlier said a deal had been struck granting Amin full custody of the children in line with Lebanese law.

The commercial Nine network did not mention any deal they were reportedly behind, but announced a full inquiry into the bizarre episode.

The Australian newspaper said "a multimillion dollar deal was struck to drop abduction charges".

"Nine pays dad to win freedom for crew and mum," Sydney's Daily Telegraph headlined, adding that "a massive sum of cash" had been paid in compensation.

The Sydney Morning Herald said it had cost several hundred thousand dollars, but that an exact figure could not be confirmed.

The crew and Faulkner still face potential charges by Lebanon's public prosecutor, but they can be sentenced in absentia.

Amin's lawyer Hussein Berjawi told AFP he had not dropped charges against two Britons and two Lebanese allegedly involved in the abduction through a child recovery agency.

"They intended to get away in a boat captained by a member of a private child recovery agency," a Lebanese security source said.

'Public interest'  

The crew were arrested on April 7, a day after the two children were grabbed.

Video footage shows them walking with an elderly person said to be their grandmother before several figures jump out of a car, shove the adult aside and carry the children off in the vehicle.

Police later found Faulkner with the children, reportedly a six-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy, at a home in Beirut. They were handed back to their father through the courts.

Faulkner accused him of taking them for a holiday to Beirut and then refusing to return them to Australia.

The channel's handling of the coverage has proved controversial in Australia and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull issued a warning.

"We are very pleased they (the television crew) are on their way home," he said, "and we want to thank the Lebanese authorities for their cooperation".

But he added: "All Australians, regardless of what they do or who they work for, should recognise that when they are outside of Australia, they must obey the laws of the country in which they are visiting."

Nine Network chief executive Hugh Marks pledged to "ascertain what went wrong and why our systems, designed to protect staff, failed to do so in this case".

"What has happened to Sally happens all too often and affects thousands of Australian families," he said.

"It is a story that not only is profoundly in the public interest but also one the public is interested in."