The Australian and Malaysian governments are working to retrieve a piece of debris that washed up on the coast of Mozambique, amid reports the wreckage is "likely" from the doomed Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

News agencies, CNN, NBC and AP all on Thursday cited a US official as saying the debris is likely to belong to the Boeing 777 that went missing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board.

Malaysia's Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai took to Twitter to urge against speculating, but said there was a "high possibility" the wreckage was from a Boeing 777.