The two signals detected by the Australian ship, Ocean Shield, at the northern part of the search area for flight MH370 are consistent with signals emitted by aircraft black boxes, and are considered as "the most promising lead yet" in the search for the missing plane.

Search team head, Angus Houston, however, reminded people to be cautious in treating this information, taking into consideration the condition of the families of the passengers.

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Houston said that the pings, picked up by the US Navy's ping locator that is attached to the Australian ship, were consistent with the frequencies emitting from the data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder of an aircraft.

The first detected signal pinged the Australian ship for two hours before it was lost, but the ship picked up a signal again which lasted for 13 minutes, according to Houston.

"On this occasion two distinct pinger returns were audible. Significantly, this would be consistent with transmissions from both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder," he said.

The United States will send an underwater drone to map the floor of the southern part of the Indian Ocean which has a depth of 4,500 meters. The drone, however, has limitations as it cannot reach the depth of 2.8 miles.

Houston said it can take days to determine if the pings detected are linked to the black box of MH370.

The signals were detected one day after the black box batteries were supposed to have died.

In a separate press conference, Malaysia Transport Minister Hussein called on everybody to pray and not to lose hope over finding the missing plane.

"We are cautiously hopeful, positively hopeful," said Hussein referring to finding the missing jetliner.

Earlier, on Saturday, the Chinese ship Haixun 01 detected pulse signals at a second search area some 300 nautical miles from where the Australian ship detected the pings today.