Victims' families lost an appeal on Wednesday for a public inquiry into the killing of rubber plantation workers more than 60 years ago by British troops in Malaysia.

Three judges at London's Court of Appeal confirmed a High Court ruling that upheld the government's decision not to launch an official investigation.

"It follows from our analysis of the human rights, customary international law ... that these appeals fall to be dismissed," Lord Justices Maurice Kay, Rimer and Fulford said in a written ruling.

British troops shot 24 workers in December 1948 at the Batang Kali rubber plantation in the former Federation of Malaya, parts of which were British protectorates.

In 2012, the High Court said too much time had lapsed to determine exactly what had happened. It ruled it would be "very difficult ... to establish definitively whether the men were trying to escape or whether there were deliberate executions."

The British authorities were trying to put down a communist insurgency at the time and they have maintained that the workers were trying to escape when they were shot. But the workers' relatives say they were unjustifiably killed.

In response to the decision, victims' families said they would take their case to the Supreme Court.

"They will ask the Supreme Court to call the state to account for the killings," said lawyer John Halford, adding that they would seek a "seek a final, just outcome."

- dpa