[MONTREAL] United Nations aviation officials gathered in Canada on Monday to discuss better tracking of aircraft in the highest-level response yet to safety concerns raised by the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines' MH370 in March.

Regulators have been discussing since 2010 how to improve communications with passenger jets over oceans and remote areas after an Air France plane crashed into the Atlantic a year earlier, but they have failed to agree on a coordinated international approach to the problem.

However, worldwide alarm at the failure to find MH370 in more than two months since it vanished en route to Beijing has pushed the issue to the top of the aviation agenda.