Two members of the Venezuelan women's volleyball team that started a bizarre worldwide search after failing to show up at a match on Saturday have landed in Canberra.

The players arrived in Sydney with three staff members on Saturday night and travelled on to the capital for the world grand prix tournament without the rest of the team, which returned to Caracas after being stranded in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Venezuelan charge d'affaires Daniel Gasparri-Rey said the players had been taking a chartered flight from Caracas to Canberra via several stops - including Sao Paulo, Cape Town and Perth - but were grounded in Brazil by a "technical issue".

Adding to the confusion their no-show caused on Saturday was the ongoing political and economic unrest in Venezuela, with speculation the players were trying to escape the drama in their home country.

Clashes between police and protesters have killed more than 100 people and injured 1500 in the anti-government protests since April. President Nicolas Maduro faces pressure to cancel plans to create a new super body called a Constituent Assembly, which would have powers to rewrite the constitution.

After the chartered plane was delayed, the two players and three staff members stranded in Brazil took a Qantas flight from Santiago, Chile.

Mr Gasparri-Rey said a shortage of seats on the Qantas flight stopped the squad from flying together to Australia.

The rest waited for their chartered plane, before returning home, leaving their teammates without the numbers to keep their tournament fixture against Australia's Volleyroos on Sunday.

Despite their 21,000-kilometre journey, they will only watch the gold medal volleyball match at AIS stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Venezuela qualified last week for the tournament in Canberra and took the unconventional route to Australia via South Africa because of the late travel arrangements.

Volleyball Australia officials spent 24 hours trying to locate the missing team on Saturday after being told they were to arrive in Canberra at 6am before playing in the tournament at the AIS Arena.

Canberra Airport had no knowledge of this flight nor its scheduled arrival time, causing major confusion for organisers who had to cancel Venezuela's clash against the Volleyroos.

with Chris Dutton