The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, has said he supports a Chinese-led Asian regional bank as long as it is transparent and not run by a single country.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB, which is expected to be established by the end of 2015, has raised concerns in Washington that it would compete with established international lenders such as the World Bank.

Abbott said he was having talks with the US president, Barack Obama, and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, both close strategic allies, about the proposed bank.

"What's proposed by China and now joined by many other countries could serve a very useful purpose because we have a massive infrastructure deficit in this country and ... in the wider world, and a new multilateral bank to fund infrastructure, particularly in our region, could play a really important part for good in the years and decades to come," Abbott told reporters.