Investigators have been sent to the Indian Ocean island of Reunion to see whether debris washed up there is from missing flight MH370.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board vanished without trace in March 2014.
Aviation experts have said the debris looks like a wing component from a 777, known as a flaperon. This is used to alter the lift characteristics of a wing and control the roll of an aircraft.
The 6ft-long piece of wreckage washed up on the island, about 370 miles east of Madagascar, late yesterday.
MAS said it would be “premature” to speculate on its origin.
Australian infrastructure minister, Warren Truss, said that if the wreckage was identified as being from MH370, this “would be consistent with other analysis and modelling that the resting place of the aircraft is in the southern Indian Ocean”.
There were 227 passengers on the flight, including 153 Chinese and 38 Malaysians.