The three reporters were then escorted to the nearby border crossing together with another eight Slovene reporters who later unlawfully crossed the border.
The Croatian police will not press any charges against them, the chief of the Medjimurje County police, Krunoslav Gosaric, told Hina.
He said that a Slovene state television three-member crew were taken into custody around 10 am after a Croatian-Slovene police patrol caught them on Croatian territory without the necessary passes.
As police were interviewing the three reporters, another eight Slovene reporters unlawfully crossed the border but were not apprehended, Gosaric said, adding that all 11 were escorted to the Mursko Sredisce border crossing.
Interior Ministry spokesman Zlatko Mehun said the Slovene TV crew were apprehended for unlawfully crossing the border by a patrol comprising two Croatian and one Slovene police officer.
Since July 2004, mixed patrols have been monitoring the state border in accordance with a Croatian-Slovene cross-border police cooperation agreement signed in 2002.
After the Slovene reporters were taken into custody, the Slovene Foreign Ministry sent a protest note to the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration and announced it would notify the European Commission.
The Slovene ministry said the apprehension represented a "unilateral action by the Croatian authorities" which was contrary to the two countries' constitutional documents as well as previous agreements between the Croatian and Slovene governments.