Fairfax Media understands there is a strong belief among Australian officials that Perth is the logical place for the investigation, given it is the closest city to where the plane is believed to have gone into the water, and that this view is being put to authorities in Kuala Lumpur.

Under the arrangement, Malaysian investigators would travel to Australia to carry out any work on the wreckage. They would still lead the investigation but would be assisted by counterparts from Australia, Britain and the United States.

Meanwhile, Malaysia's government said it would not establish a board of inquiry into the disappearance of MH370 until the so-called black box recording device was found. Experts say the device may take years to recover from the bottom of Indian Ocean, which in the latest search area is between two and four kilometres deep.

On Friday, the search area for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, which vanished three weeks ago with 239 passengers and crew on board en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, shifted dramatically after fresh analysis suggested that the plane did not travel as far as first thought.

The area - 1100 kilometres north-east of the previous search zone and 1850 kilometres due west of Perth - was based on Australian analysis of radar and satellite data, cross-checked against information about the aircraft's performance capability.

As the massive international search shifted to the new priority area, Australian Transport Safety Bureau Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan stressed on Friday that any wreckage recovered needed initially to be brought to Australia.

Australia has the facilities in Canberra to download the data from the flight recorder. In the region, Singapore, Indonesia and Japan have this capability, but it is understood that Malaysia does not.

Under international conventions covering aviation accidents, the country of origin of the aircraft must launch an investigation and secure the wreckage. In this case it is Malaysia.

Mr Dolan told reporters: ''Any wreckage that is obtained, we will hold on behalf of the Malaysian investigation team and await their instructions. We're in continual discussion with the Malaysians about progress on the search and we will continue to discuss with them the handling of the wreckage as and when it comes to hand.''

Mr Dolan said any country that picked up wreckage would have to hand it over to Australian authorities, who are being led by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

As of Friday, HMAS Success was the only Royal Australian Navy ship in the search area, along with five Chinese naval ships. It is understood that a diplomatic note has been circulated to all countries involved in the search reminding them that all wreckage recovered should be brought to Australia.

The new search area was mapped out on Friday after data indicated the aircraft was travelling faster than previously estimated, meaning it would have burnt fuel more quickly and crashed earlier. All assets deployed in the search - 10 aircraft and six ships - were redirected to the new search area, and the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation is retasking satellites to image the new area, AMSA's John Young said.

The new search zone is well away from debris picked up by a variety of satellites - US, Chinese, French, Thai and Japanese - that underpinned a fruitless search for more than a week.

Indeed, Mr Young said that the satellite images were almost certainly not debris from the plane, and perhaps not even debris at all.

Three weeks into the disappearance of the plane, the markedly different search zone will likely further anger families waiting for news. However, Mr Young said such changes were typical of these operations.

''I don't count the original work a waste of time,'' he said.

At 319,000 square kilometres, the new search area is four times larger than Thursday's zone. But being further north the weather should be much calmer than the ''roaring 40s'' of the deep southern Indian Ocean where efforts had previously been concentrated.

The plane's flight recorder is the key to solving the puzzle of its disappearance. A towed pinger locator is expected to be deployed this weekend to find the black box, which is thought to have barely a week left of batteries to power its beacon.

The announcement by Malaysian authorities that they would not start the inquiry without the black box prompted angry debate in Malaysia's parliament as opposition MPs demanded the formation of a royal commission or the setting up of a select parliamentary committee.

Lim Kit Siang, a veteran MP and leader of the opposition Democratic Action Party, called for the immediate establishment of an investigating body.

''We cannot wait. The body must be formed to answer all questions raised of MH370,'' he said.

A group of about 20 Chinese relatives of passengers, who have been staying in Kuala Lumpur, have called for the setting up of an inquiry by China.