SEPANG, March 20 — Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein expressed reservations over Australia’s satellite images that could be of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, saying that previous pictures released by China later proved to be wrong.

Despite describing the discovery as the “best lead” in the search for the missing plane, the minister also said that efforts in other areas could not be called off until the latest finding was verified.

“Experience from the previous Chinese satellite images proves that such information must be verified and corroborated.

“If it is found to be false, such information can jeopardise search efforts elsewhere and give false hope to the families,” Hishammuddin said during the daily press conference on the search for MH370 at the Sama-Sama Hotel here today.

The images taken by Chinese satellite had many believing that they were parts of the missing plane, but later searches by Vietnamese rescuers found no trace of the debris at the location where the images were supposedly captured.

China later admitted that the images taken on March 9 was released “by mistake”.

The minister today said search efforts will continue in the northern corridor, which sweeps across Central Asia, and the southern one reaching towards the southern Indian Ocean, until the location of the Boeing 777-200ER is determined.

When asked why this particular debris sighting was deemed credible, Hishammuddin said that the Australian satellite images were corroborated “to a certain extent” by other satellites.

Australian authorities have described the satellite imagery of two objects in the southern Indian Ocean, southwest of Perth, as the “best lead” in the search for the jetliner since it disappeared almost two weeks ago on March 8.

Hishammuddin said today that the time taken to identify the debris would be “any time now”.

But poor visibility due to cloud cover and rain is hampering efforts to locate the debris, some of which is as large as 24 metres, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said this evening.

Hishammuddin said today that four aircraft have been redeployed to an area 2,500km southwest of Perth.

He also said 18 ships, 29 aircraft and six ship-borne helicopters are currently plying both the northern and southern corridors, in search of the aircraft carrying 239 people on board.