Small pieces of debris, including a wooden pallet, were spotted by one of the aircraft searching for a missing Malaysian airliner in the southern Indian Ocean, according to Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott as quoted by China's Xinhua News Agency.

In a report on its website, Xinhua quoted Abbot as saying that it was too early to confirm their linkage to Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370 that went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.

"Yesterday, one of our civilian search aircraft got visuals of a number of objects in a fairly small area in the overall Australian search zone.

"Obviously, before we can be too specific about what it might be, we need to recover this material. It's still too early to be definite," Abbot was quoted as telling reporters Sunday in Papua New Guinea where he is on an official visit.

Xinhua also quoted Abbott as saying that four more aircraft, two from China and two from Japan, would join the search for the missing Boeing 777-200ER.

Regarding the new satellite imagery released yesterday by China, Abbot said.

It suggested at least one large object.

He said there was increasing hope that the authorities might solve the mystery of the missing aircraft.

Flight MH370, with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board, disappeared about an hour after leaving the KL International Airport at 12.41 am on March 8. It was scheduled to arrive in Beijing at 6.30 am on the same day.

A search was mounted for the aircraft in the South China Sea but the area of the search was extended to cover a large tract west of Malaysia, including the Indian Ocean, when it was learned that the plane had veered off course after someone deliberately switched off the communication system on board and the plane had flown for seven hours after that.

The search then focused on two corridors, namely the northern corridor which stretches from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, and the southern corridor which stretches from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.