The hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will not be expanded beyond its current area without specific new leads, Australian officials have revealed, dousing hopes the search could last beyond early next year.

In April, more than a year after the plane vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, Malaysia, Australia and China announced that the search zone would double in size.

Military officer Nguyen Tran looks out from a Vietnam Air Force aircraft during an earlier mission to find MH370. Credit:Reuters

This boosted the area of the remote southern Indian Ocean being scoured by three specialist vessels to 120,000 square kilometres, with officials saying the wider search could take another year due to the difficult conditions.

But on Wednesday, the Australian-led Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said it would not expand the search -- which has already proved arduous and expensive -- without new data.