Hollywood star Mel Gibson has denied allegations he lashed out at a photographer in Sydney, labelling it a “complete fabrication of the truth”.

News Corp reports alleged Gibson shoved Daily Telegraph photographer Kristi Miller “really hard” in the back and then verbally abused her until his girlfriend, Rosalind Ross, intervened.

“I thought he was going to punch me in the face,” Ms Miller told The Daily Telegraph.

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She said the star’s outburst outside Palace Verona Cinema on Oxford St, Paddington began when she took a photograph of Gibson and Ross as they left a movie screening.

She alleged Gibson “shoved” her and spat in her face as he was yelling at her.

He reportedly ceased the tirade when Ross told him to stop and then apologised to the journalist.

But Gibson has denied the story and publicist Alan Nierob said there had not been any physical contact.

“Basically Mr Gibson and his friend were being harassed by this photographer and he asked her repeatedly to stop, which she did not,” he told Guardian Australia.

“There was never any physical contact whatsoever and the story being told by her is a complete fabrication of the truth.”

A NSW police spokesperson told the Sydney Morning Herald that police are investigating reports a man “became involved in an altercation with a photographer outside a cinema on Oxford Street”.

Gibson is in Australia scouting locations for the film Hacksaw Ridge, described as a World War II epic.