Confident about solving MH370 mystery: Australian PM

After Malaysian authorities confirmed that the debris found on an island in Indian Ocean are part of MH370 flight, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that they are confident about solving the mystery.

Abbott said the search "must go on" and that the discovery indicated the Boeing 777 had crashed close to the place they had previously thought it had.

"What we have found in the West Indian Ocean does seem to indicate that the plane did come down more or less where we thought it did and it suggests for the first time we might be a little bit closer to solve this baffling mystery," he said.

"I believe it is appropriate because not only were there six Australians on that plane, but millions of Australians - nearly every Australian - at some point in time is an air traveller," he said.

"We owe it to the hundreds of millions of people who use out skies to ensure their travel is as safe as it possibly can be, to try to get to the bottom of this terrible mystery," he added.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop who was in Kuala Lumpur also said Australia is committed to continuing the search for MH370.

"At?least it is a piece of evidence?and I am sure that more?assumptions can come from this?and hopefully we will find?answers for the families of?those who have been waiting for?such a long time, to hear?something of what happened to MH370."

The Malaysia Airlines plane was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014 when it vanished from radar.

It had 239 people, including five Indians, on board.

The debris -a wing part known as a flaperon - found on the remote French island of La Reunion?in the Indian Ocean a week ago is the first possible trace.

A flaperon is a part of the wing used to manage the lift and control the roll of an aircraft.

Malaysia today said the reason why it is confident that a piece of wreckage found on Reunion island belonged to the missing MH370 is based on a maintenance seal on the flaperon .

"This conclusion was reached as the technical details of the flaperon matched MAS records," Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said, a day after Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that a piece of aircraft wreckage found on Indian Ocean island is from missing flight MH370.

French prosecutors, however, declined to confirm the debris belonged to flight 370 and said there was a "very high probability" the wreckage came from the ill-fated plane and that more tests were needed before making a definitive conclusion.

-PTI