The 30-year-old convinced a car dealer in the southeastern city of Melbourne to lend him a A$40,000 (19,000 pound) Honda Accord sedan last Friday and drove the equivalent of London to Istanbul before he was arrested near the town of Tennant Creek, deep in the outback of the Northern Territory.

"He drove from Melbourne to Adelaide to Alice Springs," Tennant Creek police Constable James Gray-Spence told Reuters.

The test drive was the longest known to Australian police and topped a 500km theft on New Zealand's South Island in 2006.

"I think we've topped that with the 3,000 km mark," Gray-Spence said.

Melbourne car yard owner Ian McKenzie said the man would have had to have been in the car all day, every day to reach Tennant Creek.