Hundreds of airline passengers suffered disruption on Monday when a major regional airport was shut down for an hour after a humming and vibrating adult sex toy was mistaken for a bomb, police said.

The vibrator was discovered at 9.15am (2315 GMT Sunday) by a security officer who checked out a suspicious package inside a rubbish bin at the terminal cafeteria of Mackay Airport in the northeastern state of Queensland, a police spokesperson said.

The terminal was evacuated immediately while passengers who had just arrived from a flight, check-in staff, cafeteria employees and hire car personnel were all forced to leave.

Strange humming noise

Cafeteria manager Lynne Bryant said her staff had been cleaning tables when they noticed a strange humming noise coming from the rubbish bin.

"It was rather disconcerting when the rubbish bin started humming furiously," she said.

"We called security and next minute everybody was being evacuated while they checked it out."

The police spokesperson said another two flights were expected to land at that stage and alternate arrangements were made for the passengers to collect their luggage away from the terminal.

"An adult novelty device"

She said the emergency situation was revoked just before 10am when the package was identified as "an adult novelty device".

Bryant said at the time of the upheaval the airport had been quite busy with two main flights due in and out of the airport — wreaking havoc with people's schedules.

Better to be safe than sorry

She said in retrospect the humming sounded exactly like a vibrator — but it was better to be safe then sorry.

"You can't afford to take chances," she added.