Nine people in two groups were found asphyxiated in sealed cars, apparently the latest cases of group suicides that have surged in Japan, police said on Friday.

Six bodies five men and one woman in their 20s were discovered early on Friday in a car in Chichibu, about 80 kilometres northwest of Tokyo, said Ichiro Fukumoto, a spokesman with Chichibu police.

A passerby found the vehicle early in the morning parked on a forest path.

The doors of the vehicle were locked and police are investigating the case as a suicide, the police spokesman said.

Fukumoto said three charcoal burners were still smoking in the car when the bodies were found, and the windows had been sealed with tape.

Authorities thought the six met over the Internet before dying together in a forested area on Thursday night.

A separate group of three bodies one man and two women was discovered on Wednesday in Aomori, 576 kilometres northeast of Tokyo, a police official said on condition of anonymity because of department rules.

The three, in their 20s and 30s, also died by inhaling charcoal fumes in a car. Kyodo News agency reported they had met in a hospital and had told others they wanted to die.

Their deaths were the latest in a rash of group suicides in Japan, particularly those set up between strangers over the Internet.

Suicide pacts have been made over the Internet since at least the late 1990s, and have been reported everywhere from Guam to the Netherlands.

The number of Japanese killing themselves in group suicides has risen steadily in recent years, and in many cases the people have met through the Internet, although police declined to say whether this was the case with the six people in Saitama.

In 2003, 34 died in group suicides, rising to 55 in 2004 and 91 last year.

That compares with a total of 32,325 suicides in 2004, the latest year for which figures are available down from the record-high 34,427 in 2003.

According to data from the World Health Organization, Japan's suicide rate was 24.1 per 100,000 people in 2000, compared with 39.4 in Russia and 10.4 in the United States.

No religious prohibition exists against taking one's own life in Japan, where suicide was once a form of ritual atonement for samurai warriors and in modern times is a way to escape failure or save loved ones from embarrassment or financial loss.

Source: China Daily