JAPAN will pay compensation of three million yen ($30,000) to an Australian woman who was raped in 2002 by a US sailor who never faced prosecution.

But the victim, who uses the pseudonym of Jane, says it means little because the rapist is still free.

The woman was raped in 2002 by a then sailor of the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier in the naval port city of Yokosuka, south of Tokyo. Japanese prosecutors dropped the case without pressing a charge against the sailor.