The Malaysian government is sending a team of inspectors to the Maldives to establish if debris that has washed ashore could be linked to the missing jetliner MH370.

Local news reports said several items had been collected on the string of coral atolls that make up the Indian Ocean nation, which is about 3,200km from Reunion, where parts of the missing plane have already been found.

"We are collecting any unidentified debris and storing them in a warehouse so that the Malaysians can carry out tests and determine if it is from their plane or not," local news website Haveeru reported the Maldives president's office as saying.

Malaysia's transport minister Liow Tiong Lai said: "Once it is determined to be aircraft debris, discussions will be held to determine next steps in terms of the process of analysis."

"At this stage, it is highly premature to speculate on whether this debris is in any way connected to MH370."

Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8th last year while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

The plane was carrying 239 people.

But Haveeru reported that the captain of a boat that capsized near where the debris was found on the Maldives had suggested the items might be wall panels he was carrying rather than parts of the jet.

"From the pictures of the debris found on most of the islands, I can almost certainly say that they are from the cargo we were carrying," Abdulla Rasheed was quoted as saying.

France scoured the coast of Reunion using planes, boats and helicopters after a piece of wing was discovered.

Malaysia has appealed to the governments of Mauritius and Madagascar, which lie to the east of Reunion, to look out for objects on their shores after it was "conclusively confirmed" that the flaperon was from the missing jet.