Ian Brady's body will not be released until the coroner is assured that his ashes will not be scattered on Saddleworth Moor in Britain.

Opening an inquest into the death, senior coroner Christopher Sumner said he also wants assurances that a funeral director and crematorium willing to take Brady's body have been found.

Brady, who killed five children alongside Myra Hindley, died Monday at the age of 79.

The pair carried out the murders from 1963 to 1965, snatching youngsters off the street before sexually assaulting their victims and burying many of their bodies on Saddleworth Moor in the south Pennines.

When he was sentenced in 1966, the judge said he was "wicked beyond belief".

The couple's five victims - Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans - were aged between 10 and 17.

One of the victims, 12-year-old Keith Bennett, has still never been found - despite the belief that Brady knew the location and buried him on the Moors, where he buried three others.

Police using specially trained sniffer dogs on Saddleworth Moor in 1985 to search for Keith Bennett | Image: PA Wire/PA Images

Brady's death came hours after he was again urged to "do the right thing" and reveal the location of Keith's body.

Keith's mother, Winnie Johnson, had repeatedly pleaded with Brady to say where he disposed of the body before her own death in 2012.

Before his death, Brady had been a patient at Ashworth Hospital on Merseyside where he was reportedly receiving palliative care.

A court hearing in February heard he had been bedridden for the last couple of years and was terminally ill with emphysema.

Myra Hindley died in 2002.

Brady's lawyer said on Monday that he did not believe the serial killer knew where Keith's body was.

"I don't think useful information is going to come from him. I think that if he had been able to assist in its location it would have happened in the 1980s."

Robin Makin, who is the executor of Brady's will, said he was called to go and see him just hours before his death.

"It was obvious that the end was fairly close. I went to see him and spent a few hours with him," he said.

"He was in the last hours of his life so he was pretty weak but we were able to discuss a few things and sort out what he wanted to be done."