The station pixelated four images when it published them on Monday, but later replaced them with red carpet photographs of the American actress, the media/marketing website Mumbrella reported. "Rather than the naked pics... Feast your eyes on her amazing red carpet style below!" the radio station's website now reads.

Mark Pearson, media law expert at Griffith University, said any media outlet that published the material could potentially face a claim for breach of privacy or, more likely, breach of confidence.

"Confidential material can be anything that has a quality of confidence about it. That can be images or words or confidential data. The person who is releasing it does that knowing that there is a quality of confidentiality about the material," he said.

"I don't think in this sort of situation there could be any doubt that there was a quality of confidentiality to the material."

Professor Pearson said it was unlikely the American actress would take legal action in another jurisdiction, but not unheard of. The amount of damages that could be awarded to an aggrieved party was impossible to predict, but would be reduced if the radio station showed it removed the offending pictures after only a brief period, he said.

While breach of privacy is not yet fully actionable in Australia, the principle has been upheld in courts in Queensland and Victoria. The issue is subject to recommendations currently before the Australian Law Reform Commission and the federal government.

The nude photos, purporting to depict Lawrence and more than 100 other celebrities, were posted by an anonymous source to the message board 4chan and quickly spread to other corners of the internet.

While the story proved to be of immense interest to online audiences, most news websites declined to re-publish the images, which were leaked without the actress's permission. Professional US gossipmonger Perez Hilton also ran the images, uncensored, before deleting them and apologising.

An ARN spokeswoman told Fairfax Media the pictures had only been viewable for 25 minutes.

"Some pictures that had already been published on other commercial sites were posted by ARN (heavily pixelated) for a very short period of time," she said.

"As soon as concerns arose that they had been illegally obtained they were taken down. Our procedures have since been reviewed and further measures put in place to improve our processes."

KIIS launched in January, on the old Mix 106.5 FM frequency, with controversial hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie "O' Henderson switching from 2DAY FM to lead its line-up. Its content director is Derek Bargwanna, formerly the programming boss at 2Day FM and reportedly a close friend of Sandilands. He is well known for pushing the boundaries, and was in charge of programming when the infamous interview with a 14-year-old rape victim and prank phone call that preceded the suicide of British nurse Jacintha Saldanha were put to air

Lawrence's spokesperson confirmed the images were real and said the leak was "a flagrant violation of privacy".

"The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence," the spokesperson said.