A Victorian man has been arrested over 38 suspicious packages sent to foreign embassies and consulates in Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney.

The 48-year-old man was arrested at his Shepparton home on Wednesday night and charged with sending dangerous articles to be carried by a postal service.

He will appear in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday.

Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police will allege the substance in the packages was sourced from his Shepparton home.

"Police have so far recovered 29 of these packages, with forensic testing to be undertaken on them to determine the exact composition of the material in them," the federal and state police said in a joint statement.

"Police have identified all intended recipients and have put processes in place to recover the outstanding packages. There is no ongoing threat to the general public."

India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Korea, Switzerland and the United States consulates were among a number across Melbourne and Canberra targeted with suspicious packages on Wednesday, sparking an emergency "hazardous material" response and some evacuations.

It came two days after Sydney's Argentinian consulate was partially evacuated following reports of a suspicious substance.

But at least two consulates in Melbourne did not contact authorities about packages until they received an email from the Australian government.

The Greek Consulate General on St Kilda Road and the Pakistan consulate in Albert Park both received suspect packages but did not contact authorities straight away.

Greek vice-consul Georgia Botsiou told SBS Greek radio it had received the package on Friday afternoon.

"Today (Wednesday) we received communication from the diplomatic body here in Victoria that there are suspicious packets circulating and that we should contact the police if we've received something and we have contacted the police," Ms Botsiou said, translated from Greek.

"It didn't have a return address, written on the top was 'samples' and because it didn't have a return address and without it having a note inside, we thought it was suspicious and because of that, we isolated it from the start."

The Pakistani consulate was delivered a package at 10am on Wednesday morning but only contacted authorities when prompted by an email from Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, according to The Age.

DFAT told AAP it had sent an email to all Canberra-based diplomatic missions on Tuesday.

"After learning of incidents at three offices in Sydney and Canberra, DFAT sent a note to all diplomatic missions in Canberra on January 8 alerting them to the possibility of suspicious packages being delivered by mail," a spokesman said.

"Similar advice was subsequently provided to consulates around Australia."