The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Japan have agreed terms for a new investigation into Pyongyang's abduction of Japanese people in the 1970s and 1980s, officials said, opening the way for Tokyo to lift some travel sanctions.

The deal, hammered out early yesterday after two days of talks in China, would see Pyongyang complete the investigation in the next few months, with Japanese given access to documents, interviews and to related sites to verify the results, an official at Japan's Foreign Ministry said.

Once an investigation committee started work, Japan would allow chartered flights between the two countries and lift restrictions on visits between the two countries, he said.