Noisy behaviour of time domain passivity control (TDPC) at low velocity is a well known problem for delayed teleoperation systems. This paper presents a novel adaptive model-based passive controller to alleviate some of the noise problems associated with delayed teleoperation system using the TDPC approach. By composing an online estimation of phantom human tissue model and passivity observer on the master side, a high transparency of teleoperation can be achieved while the system passivity is maintained by modifying the damping of the master. The performance of the developed approach was validated using one-degree-of-freedom master–slave robot system with constant time delay. Results show that the phantom tissue parameters can be accurately estimated. In addition, the passivity of the system is observed by the passivity observer using the output of the identified tissue model. Results demonstrate that stable teleoperation with time delay can be achieved and the environment force can be accurately reflected to the operator without chattering.