CANBERRA, March 24-- Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Parliament on Monday night that new objects have been spotted by a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) P3 aircraft, and they are separate to objects spotted by a Chinese plane earlier in the day.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authorities (AMSA) also confirmed this information in its latest media release following the prime minister's announcement.

AMSA said the objects were spotted in the search area about 2, 500 km south-west of Perth by the RAAF Orion about 2.45pm (AEDT). The crew on board the Orion reported seeing two objects, the first a grey or green circular object and the second an orange rectangular object.

The objects identified by the RAAF Orion are separate to the objects reported by the Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 to AMSA earlier in the day. The U.S. Navy P8 Poseidon aircraft sought to relocate the objects reported by the Chinese aircraft but were unable to do so.

To date, HMAS Success, an Australian navy supply ship, is on the scene and is attempting to locate the objects in the search for missing Malaysia Aircraft flight MH370.

Abbott also told Parliament that the Australian government does not know whether any of these objects are from MH370 so far. "They could be flotsam,"he said.

But he added that "nevertheless we are hopeful that we can recover these objects soon and they will take us a step closer to resolving this tragic mystery".

Meanwhile, Malaysia said the Austrlian vessel could reach the new objects within a few hours or on Tuesday morning.