Adoptive parents will get govt help

People wanting to adopt children from overseas will soon have a new government agency to support them through the process.

The commonwealth agency could also eventually take responsibility for surrogacy arrangements.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott hopes to have the new organisation set up by March.

He says that people currently wanting to adopt have to negotiate a "thicket of commonwealth agencies", mostly without guidance.

"What we want to establish is a commonwealth agency ... that will basically take people by the hand and lead them from agency to agency, lead them through the process of getting the relevant approvals for overseas adoption," he told reporters in Canberra on Friday.

The help should mean people can get adoption approvals quicker, less expensively and with much less heartbreak, he said.

States will still decide who can adopt and under what circumstances.

State and territory leaders discussed the plan at the Council of Australian Governments meeting on Friday.

WA Premier Colin Barnett said it was a sensible move.

He'd like to see the adoption agency also ultimately take responsibility for surrogacy.

"The states have got no opportunity or no prospect of managing that in a sensible way," he said, while acknowledging that was an issue for the future.

The legalities and morality of commercial surrogacy arrangements have come under scrutiny recently with several cases coming to light of parents leaving children behind in overseas countries.