REPORTS of a suitcase washing ashore at the same location as possible MH370 debris have emerged but as yet there is no confirmation the suitcase is linked to the earlier debris.

A local journalist tweeted a photograph of the latest discovery but there is no evidence that the tattered luggage is from the missing flight.

French language website Linfo.re has reported that a gardener found the bag near where the debris was discovered.

This latest development comes as Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the wreckage is “very likely from a Boeing 777”.

“Initial reports suggest that the debris is very likely to be from a Boeing 777, but we need to verify whether it is from flight MH370,” Najib said in a statement on his Facebook page.

Deputy PM Warren Truss described the discovery of wreckage as a “major lead” in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.

Mr Truss said a number seen on the piece of plane debris, BB670, is not a serial number but could be a maintenance number.

This is supposedly the bag that's just washed up at Réunion, near where plane part was found yesterday (via @Linfore) pic.twitter.com/qFXxKaMSKf — Tom Steinfort (@tomsteinfort) July 30, 2015

He told reporters it was a “realistic possibility” that debris from where MH370 is thought to have crashed in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia could have drifted as far as Reunion Island.

Mr Truss said the Federal Government had called the families of the Australian victims to inform them of the latest development.

French newspaper Le Journal reported they requested a researcher in marine biology to examine the shellfish on the wreckage. Joseph Poupin esteem said he believes the crustaceans have been fixed onto the wreckage for about a year, strengthening the theory the wreckage is from MH370.

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, with 239 people, including six Australians, on board while travelling from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Beijing.

In Beijing, relatives of the 153 Chinese victims — who have battled with authorities since the disaster — issued a statement.

“We will follow the developments, and we hope to have an officially verified conclusion as soon as possible,” the statement said.

“We don’t ever again want information that is 99 per cent positive information that is given by some officials. We want (the information) to be 100 per cent positive.”

The Chinese families claim Malaysia Airlines officials have denied them access to information about the crash. They have also expressed anger over the way the Malaysian Goverment dealt with them in the aftermath of the crash.

Earlier, the wife of an Australian MH370 victim said despite the discovery of debris she is still clinging to a “minute hope” that the passengers have survived.

As news of the discovery of a piece of plane debris broke, Danica Weeks, whose Australian husband Paul was on board the Malaysia Airlines plane, said it would be very sad if the wreckage was confirmed as being from the missing Boeing 777.

In a brief phone interview with News Corp Australia this afternoon, Ms Weeks said it was “too soon” to make any firm calls on what the wreckage might be.

“It’s too soon, I just want to wait and see,” Ms Weeks said.

“I’ve had people ringing me since six o’clock this morning. It’s just too soon.”

Ms Weeks said if the wreckage were found to be part of the jetliner it would give the family some closure, but the question of where the rest of the plane and her husband was would remain. She said Malaysia Airlines had yet not been in contact regarding the development, which she found out about in the early hours of this morning.

If the piece of wreckage does turn out to belong to MH370, it will answer a lot of questions. But one mystery, however, may never be solved — where the Malaysia Airlines plane went down.

Experts believe the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean, so it makes sense a piece of debris would wash up on Reunion Island as the currents in that part of the ocean run west.

But pinpointing the site of the crash is just too complicated, Wired Magazine reports.

“The problem is ocean currents have a lot of variation in them,” Colleen Keller, a senior analyst for Metron, Inc, a company that specialises in computational modelling, told Wired. “Maybe if you were looking at a day you could trace a piece of wreckage back, but over the course of several seasons the only thing we can say is about the general direction of the currents.”

Keller described the Indian Ocean as “a washing machine of water that’s not very predictable”.

Even if the wreckage doesn’t solve the mystery of where the Malaysia Airlines plane crashed, it still might offer some closure for the victims’ families, Keller said.

Australia is helping an international coalition of investigators, led by Malaysia, to help identify the two-metre piece of wreckage amid speculation it’s from the missing flight.

The mysterious piece of plane debris washed up on the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, more than 6000km from where the plane was last known to fly before it vanished on March 8, 2014.

Officials in the US say they have a “high degree of confidence” it is part of a wing from a Boeing 777. The missing plane MH370 is the only jet of this type unaccounted for.

If the debris is from MH370, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau says it would be consistent with popular theories that the aircraft’s resting place was in the southern Indian Ocean.

The piece of wreckage is believed to be a flaperon from the plane’s wing and was found covered in shells by people cleaning the beach overnight.

“It was covered in shells, so one would say it had been in the water a long time,” said one witness.

ATSB spokesman Joe Hattley told AAP: “We’ve received some pictures of the item and we are having them assessed by the manufacturers as to what they may be.”

“First we need to determine what the item is and whether it is part of a Boeing 777 and then if it is part of MH370.”

The chief commissioner of the ATSB, Martin Dolan, has told the New York Times that “the drift models we have are that it is possible, not probable, that debris would wash ashore at Réunion.”

Expectations raised

A US official has told Associated Press that air safety investigators have a “high degree of confidence” that a photo of the debris is of a wing component unique to the Boeing 777.

The official says investigators — including a Boeing air safety investigator — have identified the component as a “flaperon” from the trailing edge of a 777 wing.

A French official close to the investigation confirmed that French law enforcement is on site to examine a piece of airplane wing found on the island , in the western Indian Ocean.

The US and French officials spoke on condition that they not be named because they aren’t authorised to speak publicly.

At the United Nations, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai told reporters that he has sent a team to verify the identity of the plane wreckage.

“Whatever wreckage found needs to be further verified before we can ever confirm that it is belonged to MH370,” he said. “So we dispatched a team to investigate on this issue.”

Verification needed

No part of the MH370 wreckage has ever been found and Malaysian authorities in January declared that all on board were presumed dead.

The plane vanished at night over the South China Sea after turning away from its northbound route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

A member of the French air force based in Reunion, Adjutant Christian Retournat, told CNN: “It’s way too soon to say whether or not it is MH370. We just found the debris this morning.”

Similitudes incroyables entre le flaperon d'un #B777 et le débris retrouvé ce matin à #LaReunion... #MH370 ? pic.twitter.com/GDkzRLwi2h — Xavier Tytelman (@PeurAvion) July 29, 2015

He highlights two alternative sources for the wreckage: The crash of a twin-engined aircraft near Reunion in 2006, and debris from an A310 from Yemen which crashed off the Comoros in 2009.

Key to the investigation will be serial numbers on the wreckage.

ALTERNATE SOURCES: The other crashes the wreckage may be from

“There’s two numbers you’d be looking for,” ATSB spokesman Hattley said.

“One is a part number. Similar parts on different planes would have a number. And you’d have a serial number, a specific number to that particular component.

“If we can locate a serial number we might be able to match it to a specific air frame,” he said.

Tales told by twisted metal

Air safety analyst David Soucie has told CNN that the condition of the debris is consistent with an air crash.

“This is from a sudden impact, it looks like to me,” Soucie said.

He points out that its appearance “is consistent with what I would see on an inside flap on a triple 7”.

The presence of barnacles is a good indication of how long the debris have been adrift.

However, he highlights the component’s white paint as a potential problem: A Boeing 777 flap would be coated in zinc chromate, not paint, he said.

Former 777 pilot Al Legas on airplane debris: “I would absolutely bet that this is part of [#MH370] airplane.” #Greta pic.twitter.com/d4WB5YpZbu — Fox News (@FoxNews) July 29, 2015

Australian aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas told Sunrise this morning that it was “extremely likely” that the found wreckage was MH370.

The location of the debris was consistent with theories as to where the anticlockwise current of the Indian Ocean would carry parts of the plane, he said.

MORE: MH370 — only one conclusion makes sense

“The oceanographers said way back when we lost MH370 that any debris would likely wash up in southern Indonesia or on the east coast of Africa or one of the islands like Madagascar or Reunion.”

The piece of wreckage picked up was called a “flaperon”, Mr Thomas said.

[Avances] Posible ruinas del #MH370 " Malaysia Airlines! en Isla Reunión pic.twitter.com/S0yiGSmjfj — La Estrella | Panamá (@EstrellaOnline) July 29, 2015

“It’s used when the aircraft is slow in flight, coming in to land or taking off. It’s part of the flaps, it’s also used in cruise, to turn the aircraft, to roll the aircraft, and it’s also made of a composite material, not aluminium, and this piece shows evidence of delamination which is consistent with a composite piece of structure,” he said.

“If an aeroplane loses part of a wing that size you do know about it.”

A Malaysia Airlines towelette was found washed ashore at Thirsty Point, Cervantes, Western Australia four months after the aircraft disappeared: Investigatores said there was no way to link the item to MH370.

Searchers waiting for a breakthrough

Boeing said in a statement it remained “committed to supporting the MH370 investigation and the search for the aeroplane”.

“We continue to share our technical expertise and analysis. Our goal, along with the entire global aviation industry, continues to be not only to find the aeroplane, but also to determine what happened — and why,” said the US aviation giant.

RELATED: The many theories on what happened to MH370

An Australian-led operation has scoured more than 50,000 square kilometres of the sea floor, about 60 per cent of a search zone in the Indian Ocean that was determined via expert analysis of signals from MH370 that were detected by a satellite.

However the four search vessels towing 10-kilometre cables fitted with sophisticated sonar systems that scan the seabed have turned up little except shipping containers and a previously uncharted shipwreck.

Rough weather, the pitch-black extreme depths of up to 4000 metres, and the rugged nature of the previously unmapped sea floor have made for a slow, frustrating search.

Air plane debris discover in Reunion island this morning ? MH 370 ? Or others ? pic.twitter.com/oBtPULeeMv — JR.RAMSAMY974 (@JRRAMSAMY) July 29, 2015

Long-suffering families want answers

Angry next of kin have criticised Malaysia’s handling of the plane’s disappearance, and have questioned the choice to focus the search on the southern Indian Ocean.

With the search proving fruitless, speculation on the fate of the plane remains focused primarily on a possible mechanical or structural failure, a hijacking or terror plot, or rogue pilot action. However nothing has emerged to substantiate any of these scenarios.

The lack of solid information has sustained a flow of conspiracy theories, with books, documentaries and a thriving online debate positing a range of possibilities.

MORE: Malaysian PM blames Boeing for disappearance

These include suggestions that the plane was commandeered to be used as a “flying bomb” headed for US military installations on the Diego Garcia atoll, and was shot down by the Americans. The United States has dismissed this.

US aviation expert Jeff Wise suggested earlier this year that the MH370 was commandeered to a Russian facility in Kazakhstan, possibly an effort by President Vladimir Putin to intimidate the West during the Ukraine crisis, or to gain access to a certain passenger or item in the hold.