Images and evidence collected in eastern Ukraine by a Dutch journalist who returned with a piece of bone from an MH17 plane crash victim do not suggest there are more human remains, reports ANP.

Security minister Stef Blok announced this was the government’s view in a statement to parliament on Thursday, although a relative of one victim had asked for a new search in January.

Michel Spekkers, the journalist who found the bone, had claimed there was much more, but Blok said this was not substantiated by the evidence that Spekkers had brought back.

But Spekkers told NU.nl he could demonstrate that there were human remains left to be found.

On his return to the Netherlands in January, with colleague Stefan Beck, many items they had brought back from their trip to the crash site were confiscated by officials at Schiphol airport.

Last September, a Joint Investigation Team examining the crash that killed 298 people on July 17^th 2014 reported that it was caused by a hit from a BUK missile brought in from Russia.

Blok added that there will be another search by local Ukrainian authorities in spring, when the snow has gone.