TOKYO (AFP) - Two men were killed when their helicopter crashed on Sunday (Nov 22) on a hillside near a highway in eastern Japan, police said.

"One was confirmed dead at the site while the other was sent to hospital before his death was confirmed," a spokesman for the police in Gunma prefecture told AFP, declining to give more details.

Police and fire department officials rushed to the crash site in Annaka after receiving an emergency call, fire department officials earlier told AFP.

The privately owned two-seat chopper had taken off from a Tokyo heliport Sunday morning for Komoro in Nagano prefecture, some 250km north-west of the capital, Jiji Press and public broadcaster NHK reported, citing sources from the police and Transport Ministry.