Kuala Lumpur: Experts hoping to solve one of aviation's greatest mysteries are set to examine a barnacle-encrusted wing part that washed up on a remote Indian island last Wednesday.

But the families of 239 people on board MH370 will have to wait days before they are told whether the wreckage is part of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that disappeared almost 17 months ago.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak urged people not to speculate about the wreckage until experts from around the world have examined it in a French laboratory where it was flown from the French island of Reunion.

"We have had many false alarms before but for the sake of the families who have lost loved ones, and suffered such heartbreaking uncertainty, I pray that we find out the truth so that they may have closure and peace," he wrote on his Facebook page.

France has told Malaysia it will reveal to officials in Kuala Lumpur the results of an examination of the two-metre-long wing part known as a flaperon that washed up more than 2000 kilometres from a designated search area in the Indian Ocean west of Perth.

Malaysia Airlines has already said the debris is part of a Boeing 777.

The debris, packed on a wooden crate, arrived late on Saturday at a defence ministry laboratory near the south-western French city of Toulouse.

But before the examination begins, officials from Malaysia and France will meet in Paris on Monday to discuss a process to verify the debris.

United States National Transportation Safety Board investigators and experts from Boeing will then join French investigators, probably on Wednesday, to begin the examination using sophisticated tools.

They hope to glean information such as whether the debris corresponds more to a midair explosion or a crash into the ocean.

A preliminary report may be released late this week.

MH370 disappeared while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in the early hours of March 8 last year. The passengers included six Australians.

Experts say that if the flaperon is confirmed as being from MH370, reverse modelling of sea currents will help narrow the huge area of an Australian-led search in the Indian Ocean.