Kirin Beverage launched the voluntary recall after a customer said that one bottle of water had a 'strange smell', a spokesman for the leading Japanese drink company said.

An investigation found nothing wrong with the water and no cases of sickness.

'We announced the recall as we discovered the smell came from the paint of containers in which the products were shipped from France,' the spokesman said.

Food safety has become a sensitive issue in Japan after a flurry of scandals involving Japanese companies which mislabelled expired produce or sold pesticide-laced food, mostly imported from China.

In one case this month, a woman fell ill after eating frozen beans from China that were found to have 34,500 times the legal limit of pesticide.

Japan, which imports most of its food, has been on high alert after China detected the chemical melamine in milk in a scandal that has killed four children and sickened 53,000 in the neighbouring country. -- AFP