Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer will deliver Australia's concerns about possible nuclear arms proliferation when he meets senior US officials in Washington on November 4, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) said.

Downer and Defense Minister John Moore will attend the annual Australia-United States ministerial (AUSMIN) meeting with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Defense Secretary William Cohen.

Downer was quoted as saying on Wednesday it would be a chance for him to express Australia's disappointment about the US senate's failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

The US senate last month rejected the Clinton administration's appeal to approve the CTBT, which would ban land, air and underwater nuclear tests if enough countries legalized it.

Downer said the US senate had undermined the arms control agenda.

"What the senate has done has been most unhelpful in terms of that arms control agenda," Downer told reporters in New York.

The AUSMIN meeting, the first since July last year, will also cover the East Timor and other Asia-Pacific security issues.

Australian Defense Force chief Admiral Chris Barrie is also attending the meeting.