MH370 families ask for search to continue

Family members of passengers aboard the missing flight MH370 have urged Australia to search for new information to allow the deep sea search for the aircraft wreckage to continue.

The eight relatives, from Malaysia, China, Australia and Indonesia, met officials from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau in Canberra on Monday, along with American Blaine Gibson who has discovered various pieces of aircraft wreckage washed ashore on beaches of nations bordering the Indian Ocean.

Last week, the family members, who are on a self-funded trip, met crew aboard the Dutch Fugro Equator search vessel when it docked in Fremantle.

The Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared with 239 passengers and crew shortly after taking off en route from Kuala Lumpur in March 2014.

It's thought to have headed south, crashing into the Southern Ocean, but an extensive search, conducted using deep sea sonar, has found nothing.

Malaysia, China and Australia agreed in July that, in the absence of credible new evidence pointing to the plane's location, the search would be suspended once the current 120,000-square kilometre search area expanse has been thoroughly examined.

Malaysian Grace Nathan, whose mother Anne Daisy was aboard the aircraft, said drift modelling based on discovery of pieces of wreckage should be used to define a new search area.

"We want to call on the three nations - Australia, China and Malaysia - to make a concerted effort to go out and look for this credible new information," she told reporters.

Ms Nathan said Mr Gibson had found some 15 pieces of aircraft debris.

"We hope that these three nations do more than just hope by fluke people find more debris," she said.

Mr Gibson handed five small pieces of potential debris he found on beaches in Madagascar to ATSB investigators. Two were burnt, which he said could indicate a fire on board.

"I hope that the search will go on and in my amateur opinion this constitutes new, credible evidence that justifies continuing the search," he told reporters.