The mayor of a major Japanese city has told a visiting Chinese official that he doubts the infamous Nanjing massacre happened.

After capturing Nanjing during the Sino-Japanese war in 1937, Japanese soldiers embarked on an orgy of rape and murder, with China estimating that 300,000 people were killed.

But at a meeting with a visiting Chinese official, Nagoya's mayor Takashi Kawamura said that he believed only "conventional acts of combat" took place in Nanjing.

He said he doubted the massacre of civilians occurred.

In Beijing, a foreign ministry spokesman said there was irrefutable proof of the murder of hundreds of thousands by the Japanese army.