The aircraft disappeared en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur in 2014 with 239 people onboard.

In a joint statement released today (January 17) Australian, Malaysian and Chinese authorities said the decision to end the investigation had been taken with "sadness" after crash investigation teams had made little headway scouring an area of more than 120,000 sq km (46,300 miles) in the Indian Ocean.

Relatives of victims have branded the decision “irresponsible" and believe the suspension of the search must be rethought, BBC News reports.

At present only seven of the 20 pieces of debris recovered from the search area have been positively identified as “definitely or highly likely” to have come from the aircraft.

A report published in November last year concluded that the Boeing 777 most likely made a "high and increasing rate of descent" into the Indian Ocean.

Today’s joint statement said the decision to call of the search was a result of "no new information” being discovered “to determine the specific location of the aircraft" despite a number of studies.

Officials from Australia, Malaysia and China said they remained hopeful new evidence would be found in the future.

Despite this, victim family support group, Voice370, said the search must be allowed to continue and the investigation extended to include around an extra 25,000 sq kms north of the current examination area, an idea recommended by an Australian Transport Safety Bureau report last December.

It was "an inescapable duty owed to the flying public in the interests of aviation safety,” the Voice370 statement said.

"Stopping at this stage is nothing short of irresponsible, and betrays a shocking lack of faith in the data, tools and recommendations of an array of official experts assembled by the authorities themselves."