The hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will focus on the southern part of the existing search zone after a new clue to the plane's possible location emerged, Australia said Thursday.

Fresh information suggested the jet "may have turned south" earlier than thought, Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said.

The detail came to light following "further refinement" of satellite data and as investigators attempted to map the plane's position during a failed attempt to contact it earlier in its flight path.

"The search area remains the same, but some of the information that we now have suggests to us that areas a little further to the south - within the search area, but a little further to the south - are of particular interest and priority in the search area," he said.

His comments came as Australia and Malaysia inked a memorandum of understanding in Canberra over the next phase of the hunt for the plane, which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The signing followed a meeting between the two nations and China's Vice-Minister of Transport He Jianzhong.

The plane is believed to have crashed into the southern Indian Ocean far off the west coast of Australia after mysteriously diverting off-course, but a massive air, sea and underwater search has failed to find any wreckage.

Experts have now used technical data to finalize its most likely resting place deep under the Indian Ocean and are preparing for a more intense underwater search, beginning next month. It will focus on a vast stretch of ocean measuring 60,000 square kilometers.

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai told a news conference in Canberra that the two countries would evenly split the costs of the new search phase, estimated at up to $48.65 million.

"So it is important here that we would like to thank Australia for leading this search and we have so far committed and spent about $46.8 million, and we are also going to match the Australians in the tender cost for the search," he said.