SYDNEY - Australian police on Tuesday (Jan 19) shot a man who had allegedly threatened officers with a knife, local media reports said.

A Sydney Morning Herald report said paramedics were called to the scene of the shooting, which took place at a police station in Quakers Hill, a suburb in the west of Sydney located about 40km west of the city's central business district.

The man, who was not identified, was reportedly in his 40s. The report said the man had been involved in a confrontation with the police. He was shot by a police sergeant on the shoulder when he threatened the officers and was left critically injured.

The paper reported a witness as saying CPR was performed on the man but he died at the scene.

The police told the paper it was unclear what the man's motive was for coming to the police station, although the incident did not appear to be terror-related.

Earlier, emergency services had told Reuters a police operation was underway at the police station.

Australia is on heightened alert for attacks by home-grown militants. The authorities say they have thwarted a number of potential attacks, although there have been several "lone wolf" assaults in recent months.

An accountant working for the New South Wales state police was killed when a 15-year-old boy opened fire outside the police headquarters in the suburb of Parramatta, also in Sydney's west, in October last year.

The teenager, Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar, was killed in a subsequent gunfight with police.