Child abuse needs to be elevated to the same status as the anti-doping code within the Olympic charter, the head of the Australian Olympic Committee says.
And Australian sporting bodies who nominate athletes for the Olympic team may have their nominations rejected unless they can show they have child protection strategies in place.
AOC president John Coates and chief executive Fiona de Jong gave evidence on Thursday at a commission hearing which is exploring child protection policies and strategies within sporting institutions.
Mr Coates, also vice president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said because of issues raised at the royal commission over the past few years he was now steering the IOC to recognise the issue of harassment and child abuse in its ethical behaviours by-laws.
An amended code of ethics which covers the prevention and reporting of bullying and sexual harassment of young athletes will be trialled at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in August, he said.
He would also look at the international convention on child abuse and see if some of its recommendations could be elevated to the same status as anti-doping within the Olympic charter.
Countries that do not adopt the Olympic anti-doping code can be excluded from the Olympic Games, and nationally every Olympic-sport federation has to sign an anti-doping declaration.
The commission has heard over the past few days that sports recognised and funded by the Australian Sports Commission are required to follow child protection rules but smaller sports organisations are harder to reach.
Mr Coates said the AOC would be in a position to tell these smaller federations that athlete nominations would not be accepted unless those strategies were in place.
Both he and Ms de Jong said one of the difficulties was getting young athletes to report because their careers were in the hands of the very people who might be abusing them.
They were working to overcome the problem by appointing appropriate people and informing young athletes it was safe to come forward.
Mr Coates said he highlighted the issue to Australia team executives in the past month by asking them if an athlete would have come forward when Terry Buck was swimming team manager and reported coach Scott Volkers.
Buck, who has since died, allegedly sexually molested boys and Volkers, who allegedly abused young female swimmers, now works in Brazil.
Mr Coates said because Volkers had never been charged the IOC could not sanction him but the Australian swimming team had made it very clear to the Brazilian team they do not want him "on the pool deck and don't want him anywhere near our Australian athletes".
Ms de Jong said around 10 of Australia's 450-strong team in Rio would be under 18.
