TOKYO — Investigators in Japan have arrested a tourist from New York in connection with the discovery of a human head and other body parts that were found during a search for a missing Japanese woman, officials said.

The man, Yevgeniy Vasilievich Bayraktar, 26, gave the police information that led them to mountainous areas of Osaka and Kyoto prefectures, where they found severed arms, legs and a torso, according to local news reports.

In an interview with Nippon TV in New York, Mr. Bayraktar’s parents told the network that their son loved Japan and wanted to marry a Japanese woman, and they said he would never commit a murder.

Mr. Bayraktar was apparently the last person seen with the woman, a 27-year-old office worker who was reported missing on Feb. 16. The Japan Times reported that he had admitted to disposing of her body, and it quoted investigators as saying that her head, found in a suitcase in short-term private lodging, had been cut by a knife.