KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 7 — An emergency parliamentary session should be called immediately to debate the discovery of purported debris from Flight MH370, a DAP lawmaker said today, pointing out that other countries have yet to conclude that the wing part found belonged to the missing plane.

Kluang MP Liew Chin Tong called out Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s “premature and hasty” announcement to the media yesterday confirming that the flaperon found on Reunion Island came from Flight MH370, noting that investigations are still ongoing to determine if the debris did belong to the Boeing 777 jet that disappeared in March last year.

“A quick conclusion will not do justice to the next of kin of the victims,” Liew said in a statement.

“International investigations are still ongoing to determine if the debris belongs to the ill-fated carrier. Australia and France have stopped short of confirming the link. Malaysia is the only country so far to acknowledge that the debris comes from MH370,” he added.

A piece of aircraft wing, called a flaperon, was discovered on the shores of Reunion Island, a French Indian Ocean island, on July 29, which Najib “conclusively confirmed” eight days later that it belonged to Flight MH370, just before French investigators told a press conference in Paris that experts had “very strong presumptions” that the flaperon came from the missing Boeing 777.

Liew said Putrajaya’s conclusion was premature given the the time lapse between the disappearance of the plane and the discovery of the flaperon, as well as the distance of the suspected wreckage of 3,800 miles from the plane’s last known location and 2,300 miles away from the search area.

“This requires time to examine and to through vigorous verification process before certainty can be attained,” he said.

Liew also called on the government to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines plane, or at the very least, a bipartisan Special Select Parliamentary Committee, assisted by aviation experts.

“Rather than rely solely on an international investigation team to find out the truth, Malaysia must commission a local independent investigation panel to look into the institutional weaknesses that led to the MH370 air tragedy, and to come up with recommendations,” he said.

Liew said that the panel would look into several pertinent issues such as the lack of connection between Malaysian airport security authority with the Interpol database and why all communication onboard Flight MH370 was switched off at the material time when the plane was flying from Malaysian to Vietnamese airspace.

“Why did the Air Force allow an aircraft without a functional transponder to fly through Malaysian airspace? There is an urgent need to review the air space surveillance and intercepting Standard Operating Procedure.

“Fourthly, why does the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation not have an independent air accident investigation bureau in accordance with international aviation standards?

It has become common practice for even small countries such as Singapore, Thailand and Mongolia to have already established their air accident investigation bureau,” he added.