Sunday Telegraph editor Neil Breen today said there was "no doubt" the newspaper moved too quickly on the story, which made its front page last week.

"I think with Jack Johnson, the subject of the story who took the photos, I think his story has got holes in it," Breen told Channel Nine's Today show.

"I knew it had holes in it on Saturday but I was thinking `the guy's got cancer, it happened over 20 years ago, if all of his ts don't cross and is don't dot, I can kind of accept that.

"But ... we needed to do more work on it or put more rigours through it."

The newspaper paid Mr Johnson $15,000 for the images and the story made international headlines this week.

Ms Hanson denied the photos were of her and threatened to take legal action against the newspapers that ran them.

Breen told Fairfax Radio the day after the photos were published that there was "absolutely no doubt" Ms Hanson was in the photos and that "if I published something like that and they were wrong then I'm in huge trouble".

Today he said he would say sorry to Ms Hanson if it turned out he was wrong.

"If it's proven 100 per cent they are not her then I absolutely will be the first person to apologise to her," Breen said.

He also said Ms Hanson's denial was "very strong".

"We gave her that chance on Saturday and she didn't want to talk about it to us and I think in hindsight that could have changed things," Breen said.