A remembrance event for Flight MH370 is marked by a special look for a girl in Kuala Lumpur. REUTERS

The hunt for Flight MH370 could resume if new evidence comes to light, Malaysia's prime minister said yesterday as a private search for the plane draws to a close.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanished in March 2014 with 239 people - mostly from China - on board for a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

American exploration firm Ocean Infinity was contracted for a three-month search on a "no find, no fee basis," which ends this week without success.

That search came after an Australian-led hunt, which covered a vast area of the southern Indian Ocean and was the most expensive in aviation history, was suspended last year.

Mahathir Mohamad, who has just become Malaysia's premier for a second time after a shock election win, indicated the government had no plans at the present to resume the hunt.

"We have come to a stage where we cannot keep searching for something we cannot find," he said. "We understand the feelings of relatives, but we cannot allow the search to go on forever."

But, he added, "if we find any new information we may resume the search."

Ocean Infinity stood to earn up to US$70 million (HK$544 million) if it found the plane or its black boxes.

The US firm scoured over 112,000 square kilometers of seabed.

The ship conducting the hunt, Seabed Constructor, is a Norwegian research vessel with a crew of 65. Two Malaysian naval officers went along for a search when eight autonomous drones equipped with sonars and cameras able to operate at depths down to 6,000 meters were used.

Three pieces of MH370 were found earlier on western Indian Ocean shores, including a two-meter wing part known as a flaperon.