A new signal has been detected in the Indian Ocean as the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 continues.

An Australian P-3 Orion aircraft picked up the signal in the same area of the southern Indian ocean where an Australian navel vessel detected so-called audio ‘pings’ earlier this week.

Officials said it was too early the signal was from the missing jet, but was likely to be from a man-made source.

Flight MH370 vanished on March 8th on route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people on board.

The search zone zeroed on earlier in the day after a US navy pinger locator picked up audio signals in the area.

The latest developments have rekindled hopes the black box recorders from the missing plane are in the area.