Japan today said it was doing its utmost to secure the release of two Japanese and one Filipino who were kidnapped by armed pirates from a Japanese-registered tugboat in the Malacca Straits.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi ordered government agencies to work to rescue the three while Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Tokyo had yet to make contact with the hostage takers.

"We don't know their objective of kidnapping the three. They have not contacted us," Hosoda, Japan's government spokesman, told a news conference in Tokyo.

Japan's foreign ministry set up a task force to handle the crisis and asked Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore for help, Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura told reporters.

"The government is doing its utmost for their swift release and understands that these countries are making their utmost efforts for us," Machimura said.

"Unfortunately, we have no new information" about the three crewmen, he said. The remaining 11 crewmen from the tugboat were safe late Monday.

The three are 56-year-old captain Nobuo Inoue, 50-year-old chief engineer Shunji Kuroda and the Filipino crewman whose identity was not given.

Patrol vessels on request

Along with the hostages, the pirates also stole 700,000-800,000 yen and US$7,700 in cash and some documents, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Japan's coast guards said they were considering dispatching patrol vessels and airplanes to the area if Malaysia makes such request, a coast guard official said.

The narrow 960-kilometre Malacca Straits, bordered by Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, is used by about 50,000 ships a year carrying a third of world trade and half its oil supplies.

The three nations last year began coordinated patrols in the Straits after Japan and Western countries expressed concern that terrorists could hijack a tanker to use as a floating bomb or to block the vital channel and disrupt world trade.