Malaysian investigators are meeting the Australian delegation now on sightings of a pair of debris believed to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 near Perth, Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said on Thursday.
He confirmed that the lead represented a positive development in the search for MH370 which disappeared from radars on March 8 carrying 239 people.
"I can confirm there is a lead, another lead," he told reporters on Thursday when reacting to news that the Australian Maritime Safety Authority is enroute to retrieve the unidentified debris some 2,500km from Western Australia in the southern Indian Ocean.
"What debris? We don't know. We hope to give you some more information within a few hours," he said. "We are in the process of corroborating and verifying."
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Thursday informed the Australian parliament thaqt satellite imagery showing the two objects presented a "new and credible" breakthrough in the international search for MH370 that has entered its 13th day.
"I should tell the House - and we must keep this in mind - the task of locating these objects will be extremely difficult and it may turn out that they are not related to the search for flight MH370," Mr Abbott said.
Australian officials have yet to establish whether these objects are indeed related to the search for MH370 as an Australian P-3 Orion aircraft searches the area.
